
Glass. 



Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 




^^u^^a/LleeC'/SOly^ ^^i^ <KSo. ^'i^et^^'^lA 



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Abraliam Lincoln 

rpm the photograph by Rice. Copyright, igor 
I'y Gilbo & Co., New York 



Xincolnics 



jfamiliar Savings 

of 
Hbrabam Xlncoln 

Collected anZ) £Mted b% 

•fceiirs XlewellBn 'QClilliamg 




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Ube IRnicftecbocher iJresa 



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UBRARYofOONQRESS 
Two Copies ReceWed 

jAN t4 laor 

h Copyrifht Entry 
CLASS ^ XXc., N9. 
COPY B. 



III VT^' 



'w«.on 



Copyright, igo? 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



PREFACE. 

" To rule people/' (says Professor 
Littre) " there is not so much need to 
know what they have done or are doing, 
as what they think and how they say it." 
It would, therefore, be better to be the 
voice of the people than their law-giver 
or their song-writer. 

Lincoln had many difficulties to con- 
tend with in his eaflj attempts as an ora- 
tor. He faced backwoods hearers, he had 
to pierce dulness, ignorance, narrowness, 
and intellectual blindness. His thoughts 
were purely his own, but he was forced 
to couch them in everyday speech — to use 
the tongue of the common people. His 
points, proofs, images, reasoning, tru- 
isms were taken from the familiar facts of 

iii 



iv preface 

daily life, but, being wrought upon by his 
own personal qualities and spirit of in- 
dependence, they became clear, compact, 
forceful, and convincing — a foil * but 
an iron rod, but becomes a swore a thf 
hand of a fencing master. 

Lincoln's Presidential speeches, when 
read aloud, or compared with the finest 
literary efforts, show clearly that he 
gained his secret spell from the great 
prose writers. Any man in the crowd 
could read out the Gettysburg address 
and all the others would catch the mean- 
ing and feel the mere melodious charm. 
The foreigner might thus make Lincoln 
intelligible, while Adams, Everett, or even 
Webster, not to say Choate, would be dis- 
cordant or perplexing. 

Lincoln proved that eloquence need 
not be born aristocratic or college bred. 
Though commonplace, his similes were 
nevertheless satisfying, explicit, and co- 
gent, — plain but potent. ^* 

A German legend avers that a treasure 



preface v 

buried in the Rhine will float up when the 
Right Word is spoken. Lincoln was the 
Magician who always spoke the Right 
rd, and treasures of valor, devotion, and 
Iv llty were forthcoming in consequence 
thereof. His call to arms brought thou- 
sands in review before " Father Abraham," 
and his word sent them to " charge with 
a smile." His reference to the " weep- 
ing widows " and " mourning house- 
holds," when the gigantic fraternal duel 
was ended and victor and vanquished 
wished to unite to drive the usurper from 
Mexico, quelled the warlike spirit, opened 
the clenched fist, and folded it in prayer. 

Montesquieu has said, " Illuminate his- 
tory by laws " — Abraham Lincoln irradi- 
ated the history of our country by 
scintillations of his wit, wisdom, and tren- 
chant satire, despite the thundercloud 
threatening to be the pall of American 
ambition, prosperity, and brotherhood. 

His speeches, addresses, proclamations 
were for the hosts and multitudes ; his 



Ti preface 

sayings were spoken to the individual. 
In youth he taught, and entertained his 
rude fellows, and set them examples; as a 
law3^er, he counselled the simple and 
righted the injured widow and orplian. On 
the eve of his inauguration, he delays to 
bid farewell to his parents ; at the height of 
the war, he reads the wounded into the 
last sleep from his mother's Bible. At 
his receptions, he passes by the office- 
seeker to say a pleasantry to the humble 
petitioner, and men were prouder that 
they had cracked jokes or split rails with 
" Honest Old Abe " than were those who 
had split hairs with him in Cabinet 
councils. 

The reader of this collection will cer- 
tainly cry out with the man who heard 
Shakespeare for the first time on the 
stage: "How full of quotations!" for 
few books and periodicals but have 
pointed a moral and adorned a tale with a 
Lincolnic. 

Never abstruse, far-fetched, or com- 



preface vii 

plex, " plain as a pike staff " and as 
penetrative, this colloquially delightful 
epigrammatist offers sentences apt and 
terse, pregnant with meaning, and " handy 
to have about the house " as " Mr. 
Toodles " says. They form a sensible 
" constant companion/' a perpetual fount 
of pertinent application, relief, or inspira- 
tion for the desk, the lecture-stand, the 
rostrum, and even the pulpit, for our mar- 
tyred chief backed his patriotism with 
piety. 

To the life of Washington, Lincoln 
ascribed a great formative influence upon 
his own life and character. May it be 
said of the sayings of Lincoln that they 
have helped to " set the foot in the right 
place " towards the upbuilding of char- 
acter and true patriotism. 

The Editor. 






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LINCOLNICS 



LINCOLNICS 



"God Bless my Mother!" 

" God bless my mother ! all that I am, 
or hope to be, I owe to her ! " 

Lincoln lost his mother in 1818, when 
he was about eight years old. But she 
had taught him to read and write without 
books other than the Bible. Fortunately 
his father's second wife continued to nur- 
ture the boy on intellectual food and in- 
duced his father to send him to school. 
The general practice in the wilderness, 
where all were " short-handed," was to 
get the boys out a-field as much and as 
soon as possible. 

You would Lose your Latin there. 

Lincoln said of the rude frontier coun- 
try where he was brought up: "If a 
3 



4 Xincolnics 

straggler, supposed to understand Latin, 
happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, 
he was looked upon as a wizard." He 
knew no Latin except that found in his 
old copy of " Blackstone," and English 
law Latin — Obscuris vera involvens ! 

Lincoln's own Childish Horoscope. 

{Scribbled in a blank-book made by 
his hand.) 

" Abraham Lincoln 
His hand and pen. 
He will be good but 
God knows when.** 

Juvenile Poetry. 

(Written 1820, but it may be a copy- 
book motto, then popular^ and often set 
by the teacher.) 

" Good boys who to their books apply 
Will all be great men by-and-by." 



Uincolnicd 5 

Respect for the Eggs, not the Hat. 

In Lincoln's youth, when his attire was 
as iinmodish as his appearance, he at- 
tended the performance of an itinerant 
juggler. The latter produced a bag of 
eggs and offered to make an omelet in 
a hat without injury to the latter. The 
trick, though dating back to the Dark 
Ages, was new to the spectators in 
the village, but the absence of hats pre- 
vented a ready tender of the required 
adjunct, until Abraham, urged forward by 
the neighbors, as wearing what might pass 
for a hat, handed up his headgear. It 
was woolly, of low-crowned and broad- 
brimmed shape, and had seen the worst 
sort of weather. In fact, the wearer 
apologized in these terms: "Mister, the 
reason why I did not offer you my hat 
before was out of respect for your eggs, 
not from care for the hat ! " 



6 Xlncolnics | 

After the Wrong Man. 

At one time while Lincoln was 
engaged in chopping rails^ the " bully 
of the county" (Sangamon, 111.)^ perhaps 
set on by some practical joker, came to 
" the boys " in the woods and, with set 
design, challenged "the greeny" (Lin- 
coln) to a fight. 

The great brawny, awkward boy 
laughed and drawled out: " I reckon, 
stranger, you 're after the wrong man. I 
never ft in my whole life." But the 
bully made for Abe, and in the first fall 
Lincoln came down on top of the heap. 
The champion was bruising and causing 
blood to flow down Lincoln's face, when 
a happy mode of warfare entered his 
original brain. He quickly thrust his 
hands into a convenient bunch of smart- 
weed and rubbed the same in the eyes of 
his opponent, who almost instantly begged 
for mercy. He was released, but his 
sight, for the time being, was extinct. 
No member of the trio possessed a pocket 



Xincolnicg 7 

handkerchief, so Lincoln tore from his 
own siiirt front the surplus cloth^ washed 
and bandaged the fellow's eyes and sent 
him home. 

John White, reprinted in Viroqua, 
Wis._, Censor. 

Making the Wool Fly. 

On Lincoln's first trip to New Orleans 
on a fiatboatj he, and his crew of one, 
were attacked by negroes at Baton Rouge. 
In a brisk hand-to-hand resistance, the 
thieves were repelled. After their flight 
Abraham's companion regretted that they 
had not carried guns. 

" If armed, would n't we have made 
the feathers fly.^ " said he. 

" The wool, you mean ! " corrected the 
other, " as they were not that kind of 
black birds." 

If You Hit, Hit Hard ! 

On coming out of a slave auction sales- 
room in New Orleans, Lincoln, who had 



8 Xincolnics 

conducted a freighted flatboat down the 
Mississippi from Indiana, remarked to his 
crew: 

"If ever I get a chance to hit that thing 
[slavery], I '11 hit it hard." 

In a Whipping, the Whip-Hand 
Matters not. 

When Lincoln was 'prentice to the 
grocery business, at Thomas Affut's 
(Offutt?) store, 1831, a customer used 
language inadmissible in the presence of 
" ladies." The young man remonstrated 
with the offender, but made voluble by the 
potations he had imbibed (for the gro- 
cery on the border was a drinking saloon 
as well), he persisted in his " cuss "' 
words. When this language had driven 
out the ladies, the clerk was entertained 
with the same Billingsgate, upon which, 
getting his word in at a pause for breath, 
he said: 

" As you are set on getting a whipping, 
I may as well give it to you as any other 



XlncoInic6 9 

man " ; thereupon he flung the customer 
out-of-doors (he is reported as having on 
a public occasion ** thrown a man ten or 
twelve feet "), and following him up, gave 
him a thrashing. As the delinquent would 
not cry " quarter ! " he rubbed smartweed 
in his eyes till he " caved in." This smart- 
weed seems in frontier warfare to have 
taken the place of that dagger-of-mercy 
with which an obdurate knight was 
tickled when he would not sue for grace. 
It was made use of in another pugilistic 
exploit of our hero. 

The Long and the Short. 

When Lincoln was " keeping store," 
one of the gossiping frequenters of the 
place was a " Captain " Larkins, a great 
boaster. He was as short and stout as 
the young storekeeper was tall and lean. 
One day he was declaring that he had the 
best and fastest horse in town. " I ran 
him three mile' in nine minutes, and he 
never fetched a long breath." 



lo XincolniC6 

Lincoln looked down over the bar on 
the little braggart, and asked: 

" But, Larkins, why do you not tell 
us how many short breaths he drew? " 

A New Military Command. 

When Lincoln was Captain of the 
" Bucktail " Rangers in the Black Hawk 
War, 1832, he was as ignorant of military 
matters as his company was of drill or 
of tactics. The test came when his troop, 
formed by platoons, confronted a gate. 
The Captain had no idea of the proper 
order; but his wit did not desert him. 
He ordered: 

" This company is dismissed for two 
minutes, when it will fall in, on the other 
side of that fence! " (He characterized 
this as " an endwise " movement.) 

Even in after years when the Law- 
giver had to be also Commander-in-Chief, 
he did not pretend to any military know- 
ledge. 



Ulncolnfca n 

Let them Laugh, if it Works well. 

There is preserved in the Patent Office, 
at Washington, unless it has been re- 
moved to the National Lincoln Museum, 
a model, whittled out of wood, for a de- 
vice to enable a flatboat to overcome vari- 
ous riparian obstacles. It is of Abraham 
Lincoln's invention. It was a device of 
the days when he was a legislator and 
legal practitioner. But before that, his 
original turn of mind had led him in that 
same direction. While navigating a flat- 
boat of his own building, in 1831, on a 
salt creek — not the Salt River of politi- 
cal renown — Lincoln fitted the craft with 
sails made of boards and canvas, which 
succeeded fairly well in saving the hard 
work of poling, but which 'excited the 
merriment of the beholders. At Beards- 
town, the inhabitants turned out to line 
the bank and laugh at the apparition. 
Lincoln's companions were annoyed, but 
he said: 

" Let them laugh, so long as the thing 
works well." 



12 



Xincolnics 

**An Old Woman's Dance— Short 
and Sweet."' 

" My politics are short and sweet, like 
an old woman's dance." 

Maiden Speech, Pappsville or Rich- 
land, 111., 1832. 

No Ambition so Great as True 
Esteem. 

" Every man is said to have his pecu- 
liar ambition. Whether that be true or 
not, I can say, for one, that I have no 
other so great as that of being truly es- 
teemed of my fellow-men, by rendering 
myself worthy of their esteem." 

Speech, 1832. 

"If Elected, Thankful; if not, All the 
Same." 

The first of the Lhicoln speeches in ac- 
tive politics runs thus: 



> The Old World proverb is: " Short and sweet: 
a donkey's gallop." 



Xlncolntcs 13 

" Gentlemen and Fellow-citizens : I 
presume you all know who I am. I am 
humble Abraham Lincoln. . . . My pol- 
itics are short and sweet, etc. ... I am 
in favor of the internal improvement sys- 
tem and a high protective tariff. ... If 
elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it will 
be all the same." 

1832. 

" Better Sometimes Right than at 
All Times Wrong." 

" I hold it a sound maxim that it is 
better only sometimes to be right, than at 
all times to be wrong." 

Speech as candidate for the Illinois 
Legislature, March, 1832. 

Action Speaks Louder than Words. 

Lincoln's first speech in behalf of his 
endeavor to enter the Legislature in 1832 
was made in the summer, after an auction 
sale at Pappsville, 111. Interrupted by 
a fight in the audience and seeing that 



14 Xincolnfcs 

one of his supporters was being " whip- 
ped " he leaped off the improvised ros- 
trum and seizing the victor flung him 
" ten or twelve feet " from his prey. He 
then returned to finish his harangue amid 
such applause as would in the " wild 
West " always greet a manifestation of 
physical prowess.^ Hence when the poll- 
ing came, such a master of fisticuffs se- 
cured the hearty support of the voters. 

The Best Way to Efface Un- 
pleasantness. 

" Meet face to face and converse to- 
gether — the best way to efface unpleasant 
feeling." 

Letter to Judge Berdan, of Jackson- 
ville, 111., during the Lincoln cam- 
paign for the Legislature. 



' The people there and then were of the mind 
of the boy in Punch, who, replying to the 
maternal reproach that he was behind another 
m education, said: "I cannot talk French like 
him, but I can punch his head 1 " 



Xincolnics 15 

"A Mighty Handy Little Fellow." 

Lincoln is recorded as having said of 
the semicolon, that it was " a mighty 
handy little fellow." 

" I Want To— The Worst Way." 

Lincoln's first lov^e romance occurred in 
1833. He was captivated by the village 
belle of New Salem, 111. She was a Miss 
Anne Rutledge, whose father kept the 
tavern. In another two years, they were 
engaged but she died a few months later. 
The effect on the suitor was profound 
and appears to have continued through 
life.^ But, in 1839, while his friends 
were seeking distractions for him, and 
while he was engaged in the practice of 
law in Springfield, he met there a Miss 
Mary Todd. She came from his own 
native State, Kentucky. It is of note that 



^ Those cruel romance-breakers, the physicians, 
however, ascribe the President's settled mel- 
ancholy to confirmed dyspepsia, due to the 
insuflficient and irregular nutrition of his child- 
hood and of the early days of pecuniary want. 



i6 Xincolnlcs 

his rival in this suit was Stephen A. 
Douglas, afterwards his opponent in the 
political arena. Miss Todd made the dis- 
consolate one a happy man on the fourth 
of November, 1842. The wedding day- 
had first been set for January, 1841, but 
Lincoln seemed to regard it as " a fatal 
day " and it was postponed. Whatever 
the cause of the delay, friends saw that 
the swain's melancholy required some such 
remedy as was to be secured through the 
vivacity and attractiveness of the fair 
Kentuckian, and all were in a harmless 
conspiracy to bring about the match. 

One evening, at a party,^ Lincoln ap- 
proached Miss Todd, seated among the 
wall-flowers, and timidly asked in his 
vernacular, which still clung to him and 
which he retained for effective expression 
through life: 

" I should like to dance with you the 
worst way ! " 



' Related by General Singleton, of Quincy, 
Illinois, a brother lawyer. 



Xincolnics 17 

The invitation was accepted, and the 
victim dragged her unlicked bear cub 
around with her in the whirls of the waltz ; 
the steps which might have won claps and 
whoops of applause on the cabin floor or 
the flatboat deck not being recognized as 
a la mode in Springfield When the lady 
was restored to her companions, one 
quizzically inquired: 

" Well, Mary, did not Mr. Lincoln 
dance with you * the worst way ' ? " 

" The very worst," was her reply. 

It must be credited to her that she was 
almost the only person, at that early 
stage, to foresee supremacy in the un- 
couth man and to assert that he would 
one day attain to high station. 

A Lightning-Rod for a Guilty 
Conscience. 

In the campaign of 1836 Lincoln was 
attacked at Springfield by an old citizen, 
one Forquer, who had quitted the Whigs 
and had been appointed Land Office reg- 
istrar as if in recognition of his apostacy. 



i8 Xincolnics 

Mr. Forquer had just completed a new 
house and had placed on it what was then 
a great novelty — a lightning-rod. In his 
speech, Forquer undertook " to take the 
young man down." The young aspirant 
arose and replied as follows: 

" Mr. Forquer commenced his speech 
by announcing that * the young man was 
to be taken down.' It is for you, fellow- 
citizens, not me, to say whether I am 

up or down I desire to live, 

and I desire place and distinction, but 
I would rather die now than, like this 
gentleman, live to see the day when I 
would change my politics for an office 
worth three thousand dollars a year, and 
then feel obliged to erect a lightning- 
rod over my house to protect a guilty 
conscience from an offended God ! " 

The Rough Diamond Cuts the 
Polished One. 

As has been frequently noted, men 
without personal attractions, like Mira- 



Xlncolnics ig 

beau, George Wilkes, and others, have 
succeeded in winning their way by cul- 
tivating the purely conversational or 
oratorical graces. This is of great ad- 
v^antage in those electioneering campaigns 
where the voters are canvassed man by 
man. In one of these conflicts Lincoln 
and his Democratic opponent, L. D. 
Ewing, contended in company for the 
ballot of a prominent farmer in Sangamon 
County. He was not at home when they 
called so the two set to work with the 
" gray mare." But neither made much 
progress till milking time when they both 
started out with her to help with the pail 
and stool. Arrived at the barn door, Mr. 
Ewing took the pail and insisted on 
doing the milking himself. While stroking 
the cow he naturally concluded he was 
making the master-stroke — for the vote. 
But as he received no reply to the bits 
of speech delivered at intervals, he looked 
up finally only to see the hostess and his 
rival leaning on the bars at ease, in amica- 



20 Xfncolnics 

ble discussion. By the time his task was 
done, Lincoln had captivated the voter's 
better half and all that the other gleaned 
for his kindness was hearty thanks for 
giving her a chance " to have so pleasant 
a talk with Mr. Lincoln ! " 

Told hy Judge L. D. Ewing, Chicago. 

Make the World Better for Your 
Having Lived in it. 

On account of the breaking of his mar- 
riage engagement, Lincoln fell into a 
state of gloom that was alarming to his 
friends, who assured him that he must 
rally or lose his life. He failed to at- 
tend the Legislature, of which he was 
member (1841), and neglected his pri- 
vate duties. On recovering, he said to 
his friend, Mr. Speed: 

" I have an inexpressible desire to live 
till I can be r.ssured that the world is a 
little better for my having lived in it." 



Xtncolnics 21 

A Narrow Squeak for the Pig. 

During Lincoln's early days when he 
was poor and depressed by the profound 
despondency which so long afflicted him, he 
was riding one day through the sparsely 
settled parts of Indiana. His errand 
was of importance, and he was dressed in 
his best — home-spun jeans. But he gave 
ear to a shrill cry of distress at which his 
companions only laughed. It was but a pig 
caught in the mud of a wallow, and sink- 
ing so fast that it would shortly cut its 
throat with its sharp feet or suffocate. 
Lincoln looked at the black gumbo mud, 
then at his good clothes, " the unique 
Sunday-go-to-meetings," and after a 
slight hesitation, turned back and extri- 
cated the little porker. When he went 
onwards, he was daubed with mud. But 
he explained to his friends that he 
thought of the poor farmer who could not 
afford such a loss and he thought also of 
the shote and could not resist the appeal. 



22 Xlncolnlcd 

The Prize for Homeliness. 

Abraham Lincoln did not deceive him- 
self in regard to his facial blemishes. 
George Sand has said that every man is 
pleased with his face but never with his 
fortune. The President gives the lady 
the lie on that axiom. It may be premised 
that, on the border, a person remarkabl}'^ 
ill-favored in lineaments was awarded a 
jack-knife as token of his preeminence in 
this line. 

Lincoln tells the story of how he be- 
came possessed of this undesirable 
trophy. 

" In the days when I used to be on 
the citcuit [183-, travelling on horseback 
from one county court to another] I was 
once accosted by a stranger, who said: 

Excuse me, sir, but I have an arti- 
cle which belongs to you.' 

How is that.^ ' I asked, considerably 
astonished. 

" The stranger took a jack-knife from 
his pocket. 



Xincolnics 23 

This knife,' said he, ' was placed 
in my hands some years ago, with the 
injunction that I was to keep it until I 
found a man homelier-looking than I am 
myself. I have carried it from that time 
till this; allow me to say, sir, that you are 
fairly entitled to the property.' " 

As " below the lowest depth " there 
is a lower still, Lincoln was also able to 
make a happy deliverance of the token 
to another victim of fate. But the lat- 
ter, the Rev. William Hastings, re- 
joicing at its being the link which 
connected him with the President of the 
United States, proclaimed the fact at 
Toronto, Canada, where he lived and died 
(Feb., 1902), a revered minister of the 
Gospel. 

**Not One of the Sparrows is 
Forgotten." 

Another time when Lincoln was riding 
over the prairie with a party of law- 
court attendants, they noticed a couple 



24 Xincolnics 

of fledglings fluttering on the ground 
where they had fallen out of the nest. 
After the party had gone on a little dis- 
tance, Lincoln wheeled and rode back on 
their tracks. The others halted and 
watched him go to the spot and replace 
the nestlings. 

When he rejoined the cavalcade, one 
of the men bantered him about his char- 
itable act, saying : 

" Why did you bother yourself and 
delay us about such a trifle? " 

" My friend," was the response, " I 
can only say that I feel the better for 
it!" 

As there were several witnesses of this 
incident, accounts vary as to the number 
of birdlings, but, as usual, this variant 
proves the fact. 

Turn About Is Fair Play. 

" My only argument (in politics) is 
that * turn about is fair play ' " (in re- 
gard to a candidate giving way to an- 



Xfncolntcs 25 

other candidate for the party good — with 
the understanding that the relinquishing 
one represents the party in the next 
election). 

As a matter of fact, the opponent with- 
drew. 

[Letter held by Dr. Boal, Lacon, 111.] 

A Venture on Nothing. 

As a boy, Lincoln had often attracted 
attention and commendation by giving his 
spare time to reading. One inquirer as 
to the nature of his studies was surprised 
that he should answer " Law." It was 
the bending of the twig which inclined 
the tree. He had picked up a copy of 
" Blackstone " from the rubbish in the 
barrel of a second-hand clothes-and-odds 
dealer travelling through the country. 
With scarcely more than this provision, 
and what he had gleaned from odd vol- 
umes of the State Statutes, in 1837, at 
the age of twenty-eight, he arrived in 



26 Xincolnics 

Springfield to engage definitely in the 
practice of law. He rode on a hired 
horse and his property was contained in 
a pair of saddle-bags. He priced at the 
town stores the outfit for a single bed. 
It came to seventeen dollars, more than 
he could pay, but he proposed to Joshua 
F. Speed, the storekeeper, to buy the bed 
subj ect to payment at Christmas, by which 
time he hoped his law undertakings would 
be fruitful. The merchant naturally ob- 
jected that he might fail. 

" If I fail in this," was the sad reply, 
" I will probably never be able to pay 
you." 

The storekeeper kindly suggested that 
he should " room " with him as he had a 
double-bedded room; and a friend al- 
lowed him board " till his ship came in." 
The great problem of bed and board was 
thus solved for the aspirant. This action 
was what was called " neighborly " in 
those parts and in those days; and with- 
out giving grounds for Lincoln's refusing 



Xincolnics 27 

fees from needy clients, it prompted him 
to do unto others as he had been done by. 

" A Land of Free Speech.'* 

When Lincoln was in partnership with 
John T. Stuart, they had offices directly 
over the courtroom in Springfield. This 
allowed them to overhear the proceedings 
below them, much after the mode in which 
D'Artagnan, in the Musketeers, listened 
at the trap-hole in his floor to what went 
on beneath it. There was, indeed, a 
movable board, and at the aperture, re- 
clining at full length, Lincoln would take 
note of the progress of a case until the 
fit moment for his attendance. 

During a holiday of the bench, a crowd 
filled the courtroom and a friend of Lin- 
coln, Edward D. Baker, was addressing 
them, when something adverse in his 
harangue incited the unruly to assault 
the speaker and to pull him down. By a 
happy chance^ Lincoln was lending his 



28 Xincolntcs 

ear to the discussion, and, peering down 
through the hole in the floor, perceived 
the danger of his friend. Immediately, 
without delaying to run around and de- 
scend by the stairs, he thrust his big feet 
and long legs through the opening and 
dropped like a bolt out of the sky into 
the melee. 

Picking up a water-jug, and striking 
an attitude of defence, he shouted: 

" Hold on, gentlemen, this is a land of 
free speech ! Mr. Baker has a right to 
be heard. I am here to protect him, and 
no man shall take him from this stand if 
I can prevent it." 

This dictum of the Deus ex machina 
imposed order and the orator was allowed 
to continue his speech. 

The Voice out of Proportion to the 
Body. 

Once during the argument in a lawsuit, 
in which Lincoln represented one party. 



Xtncolntcs 29 

the lawyer on the other side was a good 
deal of a talker, but was not reckoned as 
deeply profound or much of a thinker. 
He would say anything to a jury which 
happened to enter his head. Lincoln, in 
his address to the jury, referring to this, 
said: 

" My friend on the other side is all 
right, or would be all right, were it not 
for the peculiarity I am about to chronicle. 
His habit — of. which you have witnessed 
a very painful specimen in his argument 
to you in this case — of reckless assertion 
and statements without grounds, need not 
be imputed to him as a moral fault or as 
telling of a moral blemish. He can't help 
it. For reasons which, gentlemen of the 
jury, you and I have not the time to 
study here, as deplorable as they are sur- 
prising, the oratory of the gentleman com- 
pletely suspends all action of his mind. 
The moment he begins to talk, his mental 
operations cease. I never knew of but 
one thing which compared with my 



30 Xlncolnics 

friend in this particular. That was a 
small steamboat. Back in the days when 
I performed my part as a keel boatman 
[1830]^ I made the acquaintance of a 
trifling little steamboat which used to 
bustle and puff and wheeze about the 
Sangamon River. It had a five-foot 
boiler and a seven-foot whistle, and every 
time it whistled it stopped." 

[Argonaut.'] 

"Settle It!" 

Squire Masters of Petersburg, 111., was 
once threatened with a lawsuit. He went 
to Springfield, where Lincoln was lo- 
cated [1837, etc.], and had a talk with 
him about the case. Lincoln told him, as 
an old friend, that if he could not settle 
the case he would undertake the defence, 
but he urged his friend to make an ami- 
cable adjustment. 

" What '11 you charge, Abe, to go into 
court for me.^ " said Mr, Masters. 

" Well," was Lincoln's reply, " it will 



Xtncolnfcs 31 

cost you ten dollars; but I won't charge 
you anything if you can settle it between 
yourselves." 

The other party heard of the squire's 
visit to Lincoln^ and agreed to settle. 

A Lawyer with a Conscience. 

A lawyer who studied in Mr. Lincoln's 
office tells a story illustrative of his love 
of justice. After listening one day for 
some time to a client's statement of his 
case, Lincoln, who had been staring at 
the ceiling, suddenly swung around in his 
chair, and said : 

" Well, you have a pretty good case in 
technical law, but a pretty bad one in 
equity and justice. You '11 have to get 
some other fellow to win this case for 
you. I could n't do it. All the time, 
while talking to that jury, I 'd be think- 
ing : * Lincoln, you're a liar,' and I be- 
lieve I should forget myself and say it 
out loud." 



32 Xincolnics 

Tit for Tat. 

During the forties, when Lincoln was 
living in Springfield, practising law, there 
was among his patrons a judge, an in- 
fluential citizen, of whose dignity more care 
was taken by his associates than by him- 
self. On his part, the budding barrister 
(to use the English term) was still not 
over-particular as to appearance or attire; 
he would have agreed with Dr. Johnson 
who boldly averred that he had " no pas- 
sion for fine linen." In his attitudes, also, 
he was, to put it mildly, careless. When 
the judge was ushered into the parlor he 
was, therefore, not astonished to see the 
long, attenuated figure spread over at 
least two chairs, reclining rather than 
sitting, quite at his ease. It is notice- 
able in those who have been brought up 
to hard work that they are apt to procure 
entire rest by lying prone; the boy Lin- 
coln was often seen reading or writing 
on the earth floor or on the unswept 



Xincolnics 33 

hearthstone. He did not change his posi- 
tion after the caller was seated_, somewhat 
more decorously. Mrs. Lincoln^ from the 
reply to her chance question put to the 
servant, suspected something of the mat- 
ter. She hurried into the presence of 
the two lawyers and found herself 
so shocked at the unseemly demeanor of 
her husband that she went up behind the 
sinner, plucked him by the hair (worn 
long in the far- Western style), and 
twitched his head up and around with a 
reminding look. 

The sufferer apparently did not notice 
the double rebuke ; he simply looked at her 
and said, without changing a muscle: 

"" Little Mary ! allow me to introduce 
you to my friend. Judge Butterfield ! " 

Now it is well known that nothing is 
more deeply felt or more warmly resented 
by undersized persons than any allusion 
to their stature. Lincoln habitually alluded 
to his partner as " the little woman." 
And, unfortunately, the discrepancy be- 



34 Xincolnics 

tween Mrs. Lincoln and her giant mate 
was of frequent remark and of continual 
consciousness, so that she came out of 
this encounter the humiliated one. The 
judge might conclude that this instance 
impugned the ancient saying that the 
" Eagle in the rostrum is a dove at home." 

Not Fate but Providence. 

" What is to be, will be ! — or, rather, I 
have found out, all my life, as Hamlet 
says : ' There 's a divinity that shapes our 
ends, rough-hew them how we will.' " 

[Letter to ]\Ir. John Butterfield, of 
Chicago, 1841.] 

This line from Hamlet would appeal 
to one who had exercised the woodman's 
art. With the felling axe, one rough-hews 
the log, but it is a superior hand that 
shapes all to the finish. 

In connection with this expression of 
belief in predestination, it may be re- 
lated that once during a conversation 
with Senator Dawes (Mass.) the President 



Xincolnlc6 35 

took up the Senator's little boy in his 
arms and said to him, with humorous 
gravity : 

"My boy, never try to be President! 
If you do, you never will be." 

This classes the President apart from 
the denier of the predestinarian doctrine 
who said in reply to an argument: " No! 
I believe that what will be, won't be ! " 

Lincoln's Favorite Shakespeare 
Play. 

Macbeth. The coincidence of the reg- 
icide has frequently been noted. 

Lincoln on Shakespeare. 

" The best judge of human nature that 
ever wrote." 

" Slow to Learn and Slow to Forget." 

An intimate friend of Lincoln, Mr. J. 
F. Speed, of Springfield, had remarked 
that Lincoln's mind was a wonder to him. 



36 3tincoIniC0 

as impressions seemed easily made upon 
it and were never effaced. 

" No/' corrected Lincoln, " you are 
mistaken. I am slow to learn and slow 
to forget that which I have learned. My 
mind is like a piece of steel — very hard 
to scratch anything upon it, and almost 
impossible, after you get it there, to rub 
it out." 

The Chief Gem of Character is to 
Keep One's Resolves. 

" Before I resolve to do the one thing 
or the other, I must gain my confidence 
in my own ability to keep my resolves 
when they are made." 

[Letter to J. F. Speed, July, 1842.] 

"Hug a Bad Bargain all the 
Tighter." 

In another letter to Mr. Speed, Lincoln 
says that his father had a saying: 

" If you make a bad bargain, hug it 
all the tighter ! " 

[Feb., 1842.] 



Xincolnics 37 

Representing by Proxy. 

The Whig primary convention held at 
Springfield, 111., in 1842, chose, as can- 
didates, Abraham Lincoln, Edward D. 
Baker and John J. Hardin. The last 
was the favorite and Lincoln had " a tax 
of considerable per cent, levied on his 
strength," as this man was to be elected. 
As it happened that Baker had the next 
term, and Lincoln the one following, in 
1846, a cry of collusion was not unnatu- 
rally raised, but this is said to have been 
illusion. When the selection was decided 
by acclamation, Lincoln proposed that 
Baker should have the following term, 
but his generosity was received by 
a majority of but one vote. Lincoln said 
he felt like the young man who had been 
" cut out " but who was consolingly in- 
vited, when the other fellow married his 
" girl," to act as " best man." 

Historical Note. — Of these three rivals 
and finally successful candidates, all met 



38 Xincolnics 

violent deaths: Hardin was killed at the 
battle of Buena Vista, in the Mexican 
War, and Baker at Ball's Bluff, in the 
Civil War. 

Do not Wait to be Hunted Up and 
Pushed Forward. 

" Do you suppose that I should ever 
have got into notice if I had waited to 
be hunted up and pushed forward by older 
menr 

[Letter to Judge Herndon, 1848.] 

A Small Crop of Fight from a Big 
Piece of Ground. 

In a case of assault and battery, Lin- 
coln was assigned to the defence. The 
plaintiff made out a strong story of the 
injuries done him, which his appearance 
bore out. Having finished exhibiting 
his maltreated client, the district attorney 
handed him over to the defence for cross- 
examination. Lincoln had studied the 



Xlncolnics 39 

plaintiff rather than his evidence, and 
reasoned that he must break down the 
complaint or discredit the accusation. He 
conceived that the fellow was a conceited 
one who would by replying saucily seek 
to show himself " smart." 

" Well, my friend/' demanded he, sud- 
denly, after a pause to " reckon him up/' 
" how much ground did you and my client 
here fight over.^ " 

" About six acres," answered the man, 
pertly. 

" Well, but do you not allow that was a 
mighty small crop of a fight to gather 
off such a big piece of ground? " 

The result was a laugh which ended 
in " laughing the matter out of court." 

Told by Hon. Chauncey Depew, in 
Rice's Recollections. 

Litigation. 

" Discourage litigation ! There will 
still be business enough." 

Notes for a Lecture on the Law. 



40 Xincolnics 

Extempore Speaking. 

" Extempore speaking is the lawyer's 
avenue to the people." 

Notes for a Lecture on the Law. 

Diligence, 

" The leading rule for the lawyer, as 
for the man of any other calling, is 
Diligence." 

Notes for a Lecture on the Law, 

" Come and Help me Let Go ! " 

*rhe law firm of Herndon and Lincoln 
[1843, etc.] had the defence in a capital 
ca§6 in which the judge had shown him- 
self adverse to them and to their client. 
Lincoln, who was the voice of his side, 
felt that the rulings were personal and 
said in the recess: 

" I have determined to ' crowd the court 
to the wall,' and to regain my position be- 
fore night." " Mad all over," he up- 
braided the bench, within due bounds, and 



Xincolntcs 41 

at the end had " peeled the court from 
head to foot/' figuratively declares his 
law partner. To clinch the argument, 
says the same reporter, he made use of a 
locally applicable simile. 

" In early days," said Lincoln, " a 
party of men went out hunting for a wild 
boar. But the game came upon them un- 
awares, and they, scampering away, 
climbed trees, all save one, who, seizing 
the animal by the ears, undertook to hold 
him. After holding him for some time 
and finding his strength giving way, he 
cried out to his companions in the trees: 

** ' Boys, come down and help me let 
go! 

The scarified judge pretended to see 
his error and reversed his decision, and 
Lincoln's client was acquitted. 

Judge Herndon's Life. 

Suspicion and Jealousy. 

" Suspicion and jealousy never did 
help any man in any situation." 

Letter to Judge Herndon, July, 1848. 



42 Xincolnics 

Don't Contest a Clear Right. 

On inspecting the evidence exhibited 
to Lincoln by a lawyer bringing suit to 
enforce the specific execution of a con- 
tractj the advocate said: 

" As your client is justly entitled to a 
decree in his favor^ I shall so repre- 
sent it to the court. It is against my 
principles to contest a clear matter of 
right." 

Legal Rights Are not always Moral 
Rights, 

A would-be client detailed to Lincoln, 
at Springfield, 111., a case in which he 
had a legal claim to a value of some hun- 
dreds of dollars. But his winning it 
would ruin a widow and afflict her six 
children. 

" We shall not take your case, though 
we can doubtless gain it for you," re- 
sponded Lincoln. " Some things that 
are right legally are not right morally. 



Xincolnics 43 

But we will give you some advice for 
which we will charge nothing. [The 

" we " included his partner, Mr. Hern- 
don.] We advise a sprightly, energetic 
man like you to try your hand at making 
six hundred dollars in some other way." 

Coming into Court with Clean Hands. 

While Lincoln was a practising lawyer, 
he had lost a case from the defendant's 
producing a receipt for the sum in ques- 
tion. Lincoln immediately retired. The 
court sent for him, and the messenger 
found him in the neighborhood hotel 
washing his hands. 

" My hands are dirty from that ' slip- 
pery knave,' " said he, and, using the towel, 
" I want to return to court with clean 
hands." 

The Presidency Was so Big. 

Lincoln's first ambition — when " clerk- 
ing it " in a country store — was to be 
member of the State Assembly. Later 



44 XincoIntC6 

he longed to be Congressman. Then — 
at the time when the railroad magnate, 
Villard, made his acquaintance out West — 
he said: " I did not consider myself quali- 
fied for the U. S. Senatorship and it 
took me a long time to persuade myself 
that I was." He became convinced of 
that later, but still he kept on saying to 
himself: " ' It is too big a thing for 
you, Abe ; you will never get it ! ' Mary 
[Mrs. Lincoln] insists that I am going to 
be Senator and President of the United 
States ! " This was followed, continues 
the narrator, by a roar of laughter, as he 
sat with his arms around his knees, shak- 
ing all over with mirth at his wife's am- 
bition. " Just think," he exclaimed, " of 
such a sucker^ as me for President ! " 



^ Sucker in this sense means a native or 
citizen of Illinois, the " Sucker State." The 
marshy nature of the land near the first settle- 
ments by the rich river bottom, full of 
mud-fish of the lamprey order, and their 
manner of feeding suggested the nickname, 



Xincolnics 45 

"Keep the Pledge!" 

In the forties, the " teetotal " or tem- 
perance movement, originating in Great 
Britain, swept through the States even to 
the borders. At the front was an or- 
ganization called the " Washingtonians." 
It had been instituted at Washington, on 
the 22d of February, 181.2. About 
1846, Illinois experienced the agitation, 
akin to a religious revival. Abraham 
Lincoln was the lecturer to the society, in 
the South Fork schoolhouse, Sangamon 
County. He had, in his general-store ex- 
perience, seen the evils of the drink habit 
and the system fostering it. Among the 



together with the coincidence that, as the 
"suckers" ascend the stream and return at 
certain seasons, the natives of " Egypt," around 
Cairo, went up to work at times in the Galena 
lead mines but came home to till their farms. 

(Compare with General Washington's reply to 
Congress on being appointed Commander-in- 
Chief: " I declare with the utmost sincerity, 
I do not think myself equal to the commission 
I am honored with. "—June, 1776.) 



46 Xlncolnics 

youth who assumed the blue ribbon and 
took the pledge was one Cleophas Breck- 
enridge^ to whom the orator said, on dec- 
orating him: 

" Now, sonny, you keep that pledge 
and it will be the best act of your life ! " 

Never Drink — Never a Drunkard. 

Lincoln used to repeat a remark of his 
stepmother's in reference to his early 
adoption and advocacy of the temperance 
movement : 

" Men become drunkards because they 
begin to drink; if they never began 
to drink they would never become 
drunkards." 

If Any Man Thinks it Easy to be 
President, let him Try it ! 

There is an ancient saying, coeval with 
the Greeks, that the pleasure is in the 
race, not in the palm, its prize. Lincoln 
proved the truth of tliis as early as his 
election as Congressman and consequent 



Xincolnlca 47 

arrival at the Mecca of all successful pol- 
iticians, Washington. He wrote to an 
intimate correspondent, in 1846, when 
his foot was at the ball, " Being elected 
.... has not pleased me as much 
as I expected." His friends were sure 
that he would distinguish himself there, 
but it was much more like an extinguish- 
ment; he, the man of the people from the 
start, actually ran counter to popularity 
by opposing the general desire for war 
with Mexico, at the bottom of which ques- 
tion lay the tremendous doctrine of " Free 
soil for free settlers." Under all the 
arguments, however, was the hunger for 
land — land ! and Texas had long been 
doomed to be clutched by the Northern 
eagle's claw. But, immediately after the 
war, and while the aroma of victory still 
clung to him, old " Rough and Ready " 
— surely a hero after his own kind — 
was nominated for President [1848], and 
Lincoln somewhat illogically stood up for 
Zachary Taylor. He made speeches on 



48 Xincolnics 

his behalf in Massachusetts. He pleaded 
that the General, while the figurehead 
of the Whig party, held correct sound 
" Republican " principles.^ This double- 
header was naturally applauded by num- 
bers of Messrs. Facing-both-ways. The 
result was that Gen. Zachary Taylor was 
our twelfth President. 

When Lincoln became the sixteenth, he 
learned thoroughly of " polished pertur- 
bation." Nine tenths of his callers were 
office-seekers for self or kin, or suppli- 
cants for contracts; his house was di- 
vided, as his wife's connections at least 
sympathized with the wrong side; and 
his responsibility weighed heavily upon 
him as he had no second — no other-self 
— no Mazarin, at the worst, with whom 
to share it. 



» The Republican party as a concrete organ- 
ization did not come into existence till 1856 
when it was built on the " free soil " ("squatter 
sovereignty ") question. 



Xincolntca 49 

Too Slow for a Hearse! 

A portrait of Lincoln, seen in a St. 
Louis art exhibition, was the work of 
A. J. Conant, who, to keep his sitter in 
good countenance, used to " swap stories " 
with him. One of Lincoln's runs as 
follows : 

" There was a man from Missouri who 
went to a * livery ' to get a horse to take 
him to a convention, where he expected to 
be made a delegate. The stable-keeper 
was of another political stripe, and nat- 
urally fobbed off upon him a horse cal- 
culated to break down before he reached 
his destination. On his return home, the 
disappointed Missourian asked the pro- 
prietor if he was training that animal to 
draw a hearse. 

" * Guess I ain't ' was the surly reply. 

" * Well,' went on the other, " ' if you 
were, he would never do for it; for he 
would not get the corpse to the cemetery 
in time for the resurrection.' " 



50 Xincolnfcs 

The eminent story-teller was fond of 
this story — so the relater proceeds, — as he 
had twice been interrupted in the deliv- 
ery of it; once by a railroad train " pulling 
out " as he began it, and again, at a 
great gun testing, by the ordnance going 
off just at the point of the narrative. 

He Wanted the Pork ! 

At a meeting during an electioneering 
campaign, one of the audience asked Lin- 
coln a question which he did not answer. 
This seemed singular as, usually, he was 
glad to reply and to show his readi- 
ness and ability to turn the tables when 
being " heckled." A supporter on the 
platform inquired the reason of his 
taciturnity. " I am after votes," whis- 
pered Lincoln with his ironical wink and 
working his lips like a horse when trying 
to get the bit between his teeth, " and 
that man's vote is as good as any other 
man s ! 



Xincolnica 51 

" The Common-[Looking] People." 

Lincoln once dreamed that he was in 
a great assembly where the people made 
a lane for him to pass through. *' He is 
a common-looking fellow^" said one of 
them. " Friend/' replied Lincoln in his 
dream, ** the Lord prefers common-look- 
ing people — that is why He made so 
many of them." 

Hap good's Ahrahara Lincoln. 

The current quotation reads: " The 
Lord loves the poor more than the rich, 
because He (or He would not have) made 
so many of them." 

Lincoln's Early Library. 

The Bible, Dilworth's Spelling-book, 
Kirkham's Grammar, Euclid, Shake- 
speare, Volney's Ruins, Paine's Age of 
Reason, Blackstone, Illinois State Stat- 
utes, Burns, ^sop's Fables, Life of 
FranJdin, Pilgrim's Progress, Weems's 
Washington and Ramsay's, Riley's Nar- 



52 Xlncolnlcs 

rative, Holmes's Poems, Chas. Mackay's 
Poems, Cowper's Poems. 

Protection to Make a Great Country. 

" My fellow-citizens, I may not live to 
see it, but give us a protective tariff, and 
we will have the greatest country on 
earth." 

Reported by Mr. R. Grigsby, Speech in 
Indiana^ 1844. 

Books Show our Thoughts are not 

New. 

An Illinois minister having observed 
to Congressman Lincoln that " Men of 
force can get on without books — they 
do their own thinking," the other re- 
plied : " Yes ; but books serve to show 
that those original thoughts of his are n't 
very new." 

Taking More than My Share. 
When Congressman Lincoln paid his 
first visit in that capacity to the national 
capital, he had had no acquaintance with 



XincolnfC5 53 

what was, in the North and East, esteemed 
" good society." In the House lobby 
and its sanctum for airing witticisms, as 
well as in his boarding-house coffee-room, 
he speedily became the pre-eminent con- 
versationalist; but it could hardly be ex- 
pected that the " Hoosier " would adorn 
the drawing-room of the " first families." 
He seems to have been lured into these 
uncongenial haunts much as Voltaire's 
** Huron " was led through the salons of 
King Louis, although his shrewd innate 
sense and honest simplicity saved him 
from embarrassment no less creditably 
than was the case with Franklin, when 
the duchesses " smoked " him at his re- 
treat in Passy. 

It is recounted that, at a dinner, where 
the joint was the not uncommon leg of 
roast mutton, the inevitable currant jelly 
accompanying it was passed in its own 
glass. But the guest, in perfect innocence, 
took the latter and clung to it, eating of it 
steadily. The butler knew his business. 



54 Xincolnlcs 

however, and, as in the epicurean anec- 
dote of the Two Salmons, simply sent a! 
second glass of jelly on its rounds. It 
was still circulating when the offender,!- 
perceiving that something was wrong, 
laughed quietly at seeing that his neigh- 
bors took only a spoonful from the glass, 
and observed not inaudibly: , 

" It seems that I took more than my' 
share ! " He went on with the repast, 
the whole blunder and honest retrieve- 
ment being accepted as proving good 
manners at heart. 

No Military Hero. 

Although a member of Lincoln's Cabinet: 
said that " The President is his own war 
minister; he directs personally the move- 
ments of the armies and is fond of 
strategy," yet he relieved himself of the su- 
perior command with the utmost readiness 
when the able Atlas appeared in General 
Grant. At all events, in earlier years 
Lincoln treated humorously his martial 



Xlncolnics 55 

experience during the " Black Hawk 
War." The Democratic candidate for 
President, when Lincoln was in Congress 
[1846], was General Cass, for whom po- 
litical capital was attempted to be made 
of his conduct in that war. Lincoln de- 
scanted upon this claim as follows: 

" Mr. Speaker, did you know that I 
am a military hero? Yes, sir, in the days 
of the Black Hawk War I fought, bled 
and — came away. Speaking of General 
Cass's career reminds me of my own. I 
was not at Stillman's defeat; but I was 
about as near it as Cass was to Hull's sur- 
render, and like him I saw the place very 
soon afterward. It is quite certain I did 
not break mv sword, for I had none to 
break ^ but I bent my musket pretty 
badly. ... If Gen. Cass went in advance 
of me in picking whortle-berries, I guess 
I surpassed him in charges upon the wild 



lAlthough captain of rangers at the outset, 
Lincoln enlisted as a private of volunteers on 
the second call. 



56 



Xincolnics 



onions. If he saw any live fighting In- 
dians 1 it was more than I did, but I had 
a good many bloody struggles with the 
mosquitoes; and, although I never fainted 
from the loss of blood, I can truly say 
I was often very hungry. ... If 
I should ever turn Democrat and be 
taken up as a candidate by the Democratic 
party, I protest they shall not make fun 
of me as they have of General Cass 
by attempting to make me out a military 
hero." 

Between the Saddle and the 
Ground. 

It was providential that the Western 
statesman should have his vision widened. 
One may see the hand of Heaven, not the 
finger of Fate, beckoning him to that 
eventful tour in Massachusetts, in 1848, 
in which he met a powerful suggestion 



* The only Indian Lincoln's company cap- 
tured was a civilized one, whom he saved from 
maltreatment. 



Xlncolnic6 57 

for the great act of his life, the free- 
ing of the Southern slaves. In Tremont 
Temple^ Boston, in September, he listened 
to the ringing speech of William H. 
Seward; and was prompted to say to the 
orator, that night : 

" Governor, I have been thinking about 
what you said. I reckon you are right ! 
We have got to deal with this slavery 
question." 

The sincerity of his conversion to the 
extreme doctrine may be inferred from 
his selection of Seward for his Secretary 
of State, an honor that nearly cost Seward 
his life. Time came when the pupil and 
the leader were to move side by side, with 
the latter using the old war-cry: " All 
men, of any color, free ! " 

'* Unite— And the Race is Ours." 

" If all those who wish to keep up 
the character of the Union, who do not 
believe in enlarging our field, but in keep- 
ing our fences where they are, and culti- 



58 Xincolnics 

vating our present possessions^ making it 
a garden, improving the morals and edu- 
cation of the people, devoting the ad- 
ministrations to this purpose — all real 
Whigs, friends of good honest govern- 
ment — will unite, the race is ours." 
Speech at Worcester, Mass., 1848. 

Judging the Consequences Points 
out our Duty. 

" When divine or human \aw does not 
clearly point out what is our duty, we 
have no means of finding out what it is 
but using our most intelligent judgment 
of the consequences." 

Speech at Worcester, Mass., 1848. 

" Pantaloons Large Enough for 

any Man — Small Enough for 

any Boy." 

" If the ' Free Soil ' platform held any 
other principle than opposition to the ex- 
tension of slavery in new territory, it 



Xincolnlcs 59 

was in such a general way that it was like 
the pair of pantaloons the Yankee pedlcr 
offered for sale, ' Large enough for any 
man — small enough for any boy.' " 
Speech at Worcester, Mass., Sept., 1848. 



If Youth Would and Age Could. 

When Abraham Lincoln applied in 1848 
to President Taylor, in whose election he 
had vigorously assisted, for the com- 
missionership of the Land Office, he was 
offered instead the governorship of 
Oregon Territory: The other place had 
been assigned to Mr. Justin Butterfield 
of Chicago. During the war, when the 
son of the successful office-seeker re- 
quested a military commission of Lincoln, 
now President, the latter, at the name, 
recurred to his rebuff and remarked: 

" I have hardly ever felt so bad at 
any failure, and I have often been sorry 
that I did not accept the governorship of 
Oregon," 



6o Xincolnica 

" How fortunate that you declined, 
sir/' responded the young man: " You 
might have come back as Senator [this 
was a sort of " rider" to the berth], but 
you would never have been President." 

" You are probably right/' returned the 
President, reflecting. 

Elevate Men, Do Not Debase 
Them. 

" As I understand the spirit of our in- 
stitutions, it is designed to promote the 
elevation of men. I am therefore hostile 
to anything that tends to their debase- 
ment." 

To Rise, Improve Yourself. 

" The way for a young man to rise is 
to improve himself every way he can, 
never suspecting that anybody wishes to 
hinder him." 

Letter to Judge Herndon^, July, 1848. 



Xincolntca 6i 

Stand with the Right ! 

" Stand with anybody that stands right. 
Stand with him while he is right and part 
with him when he goes wrong." 

**Let none Falter Who Thinks He 
is Right." 

Military Glory. 
** Military glory — that attractive rain- 
bow that rises in showers of blood; that 
serpent's eye that charms to destroy! " 

" The Monarch of All He Surveyed." 

In the middle of the last century, E. 
F. Beale, afterwards General, was Sur- 
veyor-general to California, where he sur- 
veyed — that is, conveyed — a large tract of 
land to his own estate, and the fact was 
public property. He himself laughed 
with his censors on the ground that he 
laughs best who laughs last. This an- 
nexation was the basis of President Lin- 
coln's quotation that the ex-official was 
" Monarch of all he surveyed." 



62 Xincolnics 

"Work, Work, Work is the Main 
Thing." 

Abraham Lincoln's advice to a young 
man wishing to become a great lawyer. 
(1850). 

No Day Without its Gain. 
" I do not think much of a man who 
is not wiser to-day than he was yes- 
terday." 

All Nature a Mine. 

" All nature, the whole world, ma- 
terial, moral, intellectual, is a mine." 

Notes for a Lecture. 

There is Another Great Man of 
that Name ! 

At the National Republican Convention, 
held at Philadelphia, on the 17th June, 
1856, Abraham Lincoln was proposed as 
nominee for the Vice-Presidency. The 
first ballot produced for him 110 votes. 
The promising news reached him at Ur- 
bana. 111., where he was attending court 



' Xincolnics 63 

as a pleader. The telegram was so rare 
a feather for their townsman's cap that 
the cry arose: " He has become famous! " 
Lincoln read of the honor with incredu- 
lity, no doubt thinking that " there were 
strong men before Agamemnon," and 
remarked : 

There is a distinguished man of that 
name in Massachusetts." 

Indeed, there was, the Governor of that 
State, Levi Lincoln, actually descended, 
like his namesake, from the Quaker Sam- 
uel Lincoln, of Hingham, Mass. 

" Slavery is a Curse to the White 
Man.'* 

" We will speak for freedom and 
against slavery, until everywhere, on this 
wide land, the sun shall shine, and the 
rain shall fall, and the wind shall blow 
upon no man who goes forth to unre- 
quited toil. . . . Slavery is a curse to 
the white man, wherever it has existed." 

Speech at Charleston, 111., 1856. 



64 Xincolnics 

" Slavery is Wrong ! '* 

The author proclaimed this sentiment 
as the profound central truth of the Re- 
publican party; the whole paragraph is: 

" Slavery is wrong, and ought to be 
dealt with as wrong." 

Speech at Springfield, 111., June, 1858. 

"No Man Good Enough to Govern 
Another." 

" I say that no man is good enough tp 
govern another man without that other 
man's consent. I say this is the leading 
principle, the sheet-anchor of American 
RejJublicanism." 

No Moon, No Murder. 

In 1858, Lincoln was engaged in the 
campaign for the senatorship which later 
lifted him into his candidacy for the Presi-^ 
dency. But in spite of his having for 
the sake of this contest relinquished for 
the time the practice of law, he ac- 



Xincoln(c6 65 

quiesced in an appeal for him to speak 
in the defence of the son of an old neigh- 
bor of Sangamon County, accused of 
murder. This Armstrong had been 
" mixed up " with some fighters, and, as' 
one of them died from a blow, the con- 
spiring witnesses of the " chance-medley " 
affirmed that the blow was struck with 
an instrument in the accused man's 
hands. On the morning of the trial Lin- 
coln said to the mother of the prisoner, 
* Your son will be free before sun- 
down," and such was the local faith in 
" Honest Abe " that she awaited the re- 
sult with lessened anxiety. 

Lincoln had sifted out the evidence so 
that the sole dangerous point was from 
one witness, who persisted in repeating 
positively that he had seen the fatal blow 
struck, and declared the weapon to have 
been a slung-shot. 

Question. — " How could you have seen 
him strike the fatal blow when, according 
to all the evidence, the quarrel occurred 
5 



66 Xincolnlcs 

between eleven and twelve o'clock at 
night, when there was no light of any 
kind ? " 

The man quickly replied : " I saw it by 
the light of the moon, which was shining 
brightly." 

This seemed decisive, but the advocate, 
prepared at all points, said: 

" Gentlemen of the jury, I hold in my 
hand the proof that on the night of the 
supposed murder there was no moon in 
the sky ! " 

He produced the almanac to convince 
the court, and the man was released to 
gladden his mother. Lincoln refused any 
fee for this service to a neighbor. 

Make a Man Beat Himself. 

On the eve of the first of the tilts in 
the demagogical debate of Lincoln and 
Douglas, a friend of the former assured 
him that he would beat the more prac- 
tised orator and obtain the senatorship 
if he made the best use of his opportunity. 



3Llncolnlc6 67 

" No/' was the answer. " I can't beat 
him for the Senate, but I '11 make him 
beat himself for the Presidency." 

" But," adds Mr. Leonard Swett, who 
recounts the prophecy, " at that moment 
Lincoln had no more idea of being nomi- 
nated for and elected to that office [the 
Presidency] than of being crowned Em- 
peror of China." 

Mrs. Lincoln, however, had the thought 
twenty years earlier. 

Make Marks not to be Forgotten. 

The Douglas-Lincoln debates fixed the 
slavery problem as " the great and dur- 
able question of the age." Lincoln also 
thought that the destinies of the nation 
might hang upon it. In referring to 
that electioneering duel he said: 

" Though I now sink out of view and 
shall be forgotten, I believe I have made 
some marks which will tell for the cause 
of civil liberty long after I am gone." 



68 Xincolnicd 

" Revolutionize Through the Ballot- 
Box." 

Although Lincoln espoused the cause 
of freedom, he did not at once side with 
the extremists, and he was incorrectly 
ranked in 1858 with the Abolitionists. 
Indeed, he said flatly at the time of that 
agitation : 

" Let there be peace ! Revolutionize 
through the ballot-box; and restore the 
Government once more to the affections 
and hearts of men by making it express, 
as it was intended to do, the highest spirit 
of justice and liberty." 

** Win, or Die A-Trying ! " 

When Judge H. W. Beckwith, of Dan- 
ville, came over to Ottawa, where the de- 
bates were to begin to which Lincoln had 
challenged his opposing candidate, 
Stephen A. Douglas, he found his friend 
looking careworn. Douglas had at first 
rejected the challenge, but later accepted 
it. His supporters and not a few of the 



Xincolnics 69 

Lincolnites supposed that the first en- 
counter would see " the Little Giant " 
(Douglas was a stumpy^ thick-set man, 
like Daniel Webster in miniature) " chaw 
up Old Abe." 

But Lincoln threw off his sombreness 
and, accosting Mr. Beckwith with his old 
free and easy manner, asked after friends 
where he " hailed from," and, with a cer- 
tain familiar abruptness not unusual in 
him, said: 

" Come sit down, and I will tell you 
a story." He began by repeating some- 
thing like the passage in Crockett's 
Memoirs, accepted at that time in the 
West as realistic, of the boy fighting a 
fist-fight in the woods, and added: 

" You see, the other fellow is not saying 
a word. His arms are at his side, his 
fists are closely doubled up, his head is 
drawn to the shoulder, and his teeth are 
set firmly together. He is saving his 
wind for the fight, and, as sure as it 
comes off, he will win it, or die a-trying." 



70 Xincolnics 

Inferable Evidence. 

In June, 1858, in the first of the Doug- 
las-Lincoln debates, the latter cited, in 
reference to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, 
the proceedings under it by Presidents 
Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan, 
and the Dred Scott decision by Chief Jus- 
tice Roger B. Taney, as resembling the 
frame of a house: 

" When we see a lot of framed timbers, 
different portions of which we know have 
been gotten out at different times and 
places and by different wormmen, — 
Stephen, Franklin, Roger, and James, for 
instance, — and we see these timbers joined 
together, and see they exactly make the 
frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons 
and mortises exactly fitting, and all the 
lengths and proportions of the different 
pieces exactly adapted to their respective 
places, and not a piece too many or too 
few, not omitting even scaffolding — or, if 
a single piece be lacking, we see the place 
in the frame exactly fitted and prepared 



Xincolnics 71 

yet to bring such a piece in — in such a 
case we find it impossible not to believe 
that Stephen and Franklin and Roger 
and James all understood one another 
from the beginning, and all worked upon 
a common plan or draft, drawn up before 
the first blow was struck." 

A House Divided Cannot Stand. 

It was in this speech that Lincoln used 
the famous symbol of the " house di- 
vided against itself/' which gave the key- 
to the campaign he proposed — " A house 
divided against itself cannot stand. I be- 
lieve this Government cannot endure per- 
manently half slave and half free. . . . 
I do not expect the house to fall, but I 
do expect it will cease to be divided. It 
will become all one thing or all the 
other." 

When his friends and advisers ob- 
jected to his using the expression of the 
"divided house/' Lincoln said: 



72 Utncolnics 

** That expression is a truth of all ex- 
perience. The proposition is indisputably 
true, and has been true for more than six 
thousand years, and — I will deliver this 
speech as it is written. I would rather 
be defeated with this expression in the 
speech than be victorious without it." 

Asked again, later, to recall his state- 
ment or to revise it, he replied: 

" If I had to draw a pen across my rec- 
ord and erase my whole life from sight, 
and I had one poor gift or choice left as 
to what I should save from the wreck, I 
should choose that speech and leave it to 
the world unerased." 

Easier to Make a New Speech than 
an Old One. 

In the discussions of 1858, it was no- 
ticed that Douglas clinched his nails of 
rhetoric by repeated blows, while the 
younger contestant seldom repeated his i 
images and allusions. It was a question 



Xincolnics 73 

of fertility of invention and of resources, 
like the composer Rossini, who, when writ- 
ing an opera in bed, preferred to com- 
pose an entire aria to getting off the 
couch and seeking some leaves which had 
blown beneath it. 

Practice Before and Behind the Bar. 

The Rev. Dr. Cuyler has cited Abraham 
Lincoln among the illustrious upholders 
of temperance and is justified in so 
doing. This does not conflict with the 
fact that the village stores with which 
Lincoln was connected as assistant and 
proprietor in his earlier years were 
groggeries as well as groceries — it was in- 
evitable at the time. The bar was as set 
a fixture as the counter. Rum and whis- 
key were the two medicines most gener- 
ally used. The ex-bartender did not deny 
the fact although it was a light stigma to 
bear. Nevertheless, in the Douglas-Lin- 
coln debates, the former had the unkind- 



74 Xincolnics 

ness to utter a slur about his adversary 
having more practice behind the bar 
than before it — for Lincoln had but re- 
cently been admitted to plead in the 
courts. It was an allusion capable of 
happy retort. It was a common cry that 
Judge and Senator Douglas was a " judge 
of good liquor/' as the saying goes. It 
was the era of good living, when Martin 
Van Buren was a " 'prince of good 
fellows." 

" This/' returned Lincoln with his in- 
cipient wink to accentuate the humor, 
" applies with similar force to my digni- 
fied opponent, as, while I have practised 
behind the bar, he has practised he- 
fore it ! " 

No Cabbages Sprouting on My 
Face. 

It was probably the contrast in the 
personal aspect of the champions of the 
Democratic and the Republican parties in 
1858^ in IllinoiSj that infused noticeable 



Xincolntcs 75 

heat into the utterances of both orators 
and that piqued the hearers; and, as the 
junior disputant pointed out, their ca- 
reers were unlike in progress and fruit. 

" With me/' said Abraham Lincoln, 
" the race of ambition has been a flat fail- 
ure. [He had failed in a late election.] 
With Mr. Douglas, it has been one of 
splendid success. . . . All the anxious 
politicians of his party have been looking 
upon him as certain to be the President 
of the United States. They have seen 
in his jolly, round, fruitful face, post- 
offices, land-offices, marshalships, and 
Cabinet appointments, charge-ships and 
foreign missions, bursting and sprouting 
out, in wonderful exuberance, ready to be 
laid hold of by their greedy hands. And as 
they have been gazing upon this attractive 
picture so long, they cannot . . . bring 
themselves to give up the charming hope; 
but, with greedier anxiety, they rush 
about him, sustain him and give him 
marches, triumphal entries, and recep- 



76 Xincolnics 

tions beyond what even in the days of 
his highest prosperity they could have 
brought about in his favor. 

*' On the contrary, nobody has ever 
expected me to be President. In my 
poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever 
seen that any cabbages were sprouting 
out! These are disadvantages . . . 
that the Republicans labor under. We 
have to fight this battle upon principle, 
and upon principle alone." 

The pain and pitifulness of this self- 
depreciation lie in its truth — the Ugly 
Duckling knew his physical imperfec- 
tions aesthetically and jested at them. 

" No Royalty in Our Carriage." 

Although in 1858 there were neither 
Wagner nor Pullman cars, a special train 
was provided for Senator Douglas, while 
Lincoln was consigned to an ordinary one. 
Once, when the decorated coaches 
flaunted by, the lowly candidate, side- 
tracked in a freight train, said: 



Xlncolnfcs 77 

" The gentleman in that turnout evi- 
dently smelt no royalty in our carriage ! " 

** Hold My Coat while I Stone 
Stephen ! " 

In the debate between Douglas and 
Lincoln^ in 1858, the former, a practised 
and popular demagogue, led off with so 
captivating a discourse that his oppo- 
nent's adherents believed the battle was 
won and that their spokesman would not 
have a hearing from the enthralled crowd. 
But Lincoln got up as soon only as the 
cheers died away, looking taller and 
more angular than ever, and " shucking " 
his long linen duster, which he dropped 
on the arm of a young bj^stander, re- 
marked in his piping voice, which never- 
theless had a far-pervading tone: 
" Hold my coat while I stone Stephen ! " 
This pun annulled the good effect of 
the previous harangue, and the disputant 
was listened to with attention. 



78 Xincolnice 

It is interesting to recall that the two 
contestants should in youth have been 
rivals for the hand of the same woman. 
A further incident in their relations may- 
be noted: At the inauguration of Lincoln, 
Douglas had the courtesy to hold Lin- 
coln's hat. Moreover, the " Roger " of 
the episode recorded on page 70, ad- 
ministered the oath of office, while the 
" James " also cited was the retiring 
President, Buchanan. 

Familiarize with Chains and You 
Prepare to Wear Them. 

" Our reliance [against tyranny] is 
the love of liberty which God has planted 
in us. Our defence is in the spirit which 
prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, 
in all lands — everywhere. Destroy this 
spirit and you have planted the seeds of 
despotism at your own doors. Familiarize 
yourselves with the chains of bondage and 
you prepare your own limbs to wear them. 



Xfncolnicg 79 

Accustomed to trample on the rights of 
others, you have lost the genius of your 
own independence, and become fit subjects 
of the first cunning tyrant who rises 
among you." 

Speech at Edwardsville, 111., Sept. 13, 
1858. 

Fighting Proves Nothing. 

" I am informed that my distinguished 
friend [Douglas] yesterday became a lit- 
tle excited — nervous perhaps, — and said 
something about fighting, as though re- 
ferring to a pugilistic encounter between 
him and myself. . . . Well, I merely wish 
to say that I shall fight neither Judge 
Douglas nor his second. ... In the 
first place, a fight would prove nothing 
which is in issue in this contest. . . . 
If my fighting Judge Douglas would not 
prove anything, it would certainly prove 
nothing for me to fight his bottle-holder. 
My second reason ... is that I don't 



8o Xincolnics 

believe the Judge wants it himself. He 
and I are about the best friends in the 
world, and when we get together, he 
would no more think of fighting 
me than of fighting his wife. There- 
fore, when the Judge talked about 
fighting, he was not giving vent to any ill 
feeling of his own, but merely trying to 
excite — well, enthusiasm against me on the 
part of his audience. And as I find he 
was tolerably successful, we will call it 
quits." 

Speech at Havana, 111., 1858. 

" Return to the Fountain ! '* 

" My countrymen, if you have been 
taught doctrines conflicting with the great 
landmarks of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence; if you have listened to sugges- 
tions which would take away from its 
grandeur and mutilate the fair symmetry 
of its proportions; if you have been in- 
clined to believe that all men are not 



Xfncolnfcs 8i 

created equal in those inalienable rights 
enumerated in our chart of liberty^ let me 
entreat you to come back! Return to the 
Fountain whose waters spring close by 
the blood of the Revolution. You may 
do anything with me you choose, if you 
will but heed these sacred principles. 
I charge you to drop every paltry and 
insignificant thought for any man's suc- 
cess. It is nothing; I am nothing; Judge 
Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy 
that immortal emblem of humanity — the 
Declaration of Independence." 

Speech at Beardsville, 111., Aug. 12, 
1858. Characterized by Horace 
White, reporting it for the Chicago 
Tribune, as Lincoln's " greatest in- 
spiration/* 

The Bulwark of Liberty. 

" What constitutes the bulwark of our 
liberty and independence.^ It is not our 
frowning battlements, our bustling sea- 



82 Xincolntcs 

coasts, our army and our navy. These are 
not our reliance against tyranny. Our re- 
liance is the love of liberty which God has 
planted in us." 

Speech at Edwardsville, 111., Sept. 13, 
1858. 

" The Boy Who Did not Weigh as 

Much as Expected, and He Knew 

He Would n't!" 

In the Douglas-Lincoln debates, a 
flurry was originated by a trick — fair 
enough perhaps as matters are in " love, 
war and politics." Resolutions adopted 
by a " hole-in-a-corner " meeting of Ab- 
olitionists were attributed to a council 
at which Lincoln was, furthermore, ac- 
cused of presiding. The assertion, when 
disproved, greatly injured the Democratic 
cause. Horace Greeley, in a style quite 
Lincolnic, wrote on this blunder: 

" Douglas is like the man's boy who did 
not weigh as much as he expected, and 



Xtncolnlcs 83 

he always knew he would n't." ^ Lincoln 
capped the slip by doubting the genuine- 
ness of a document which his adversary 
produced — after the Springfield " for- 
gery! 

Playing Cuttlefish. 

" Judge Douglas is playing cuttlefish — • 
a small species of fish that has no mode 
of defending itself when pursued^ except 
by throwing out a black fluid which makes 
the water so dark the enemy cannot see 
it; and thus it escapes." 

Speech at Charleston, 111., 1858. 

"The Eternal Struggle between 
Right and Wrong." 

" Slavery is the real issue. It will con- 
tinue in this country when these poor 

^ The paragraph Greelev misquoted was thus 
printed in 1838. Definite Information— 
"Well , Robert, how much did your pig weigh ?" 
" It did not vveio:h as much as I expected, and 
I always thought itwouldn't."— Detroit Spec- 
tator, 



84 Xincolnlcs 

tongues of Judge Douglas and myself 
shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle 
between two principles — Right and Wrong 
■ — throughout the world. . . . The one 
is the common right of humanity, and the 
other the divine right of kings. . . . 
It is the same spirit that says: 

" ' You work and toil and earn bread — 
and I '11 eat it ! * 

" No matter in what shape it comes, 
whether from the mouth of a king who 
seeks to bestride the people of his own 
nation and live by the fruit of their la- 
bor, or from one race of men as an apol- 
ogy for enslaving another race, it is the 
same tyrannical principal." 

Last debate between Douglas and Lin- 
coln, 1858. 

Atalanta and the Apple. 
Lincoln lost the prize of the senator- 
ship of Illinois to his personal and politi- 
cal antagonist, Stephen A. Douglas, by 
persisting in a course in regard to slavery 



Xincolnics 85 

which was counter to the advice of his 
immediate friends. He related the follow- 
ing story to illustrate that he perfectly 
well knew what was at stake. He saw 
that while Douglas, a " trimmer," might 
win the lesser office, he would damn him- 
self for the prospect of being the next 
President. It so fell out. The story runs 
in this guise : 

" There was an old farmer out our way, 
who had a fair daughter and a fine apple- 
tree, each of which he prized as * the ap- 
ple of his eye.' 

" One of the courters ' sparking ' up 
for her hand was a dashing young fellow, 
while his rival next in consequence was 
but a plain person in face and speech, 
whom, however, the farmer favored, no 
doubt from * Like liking Like.' (The dash- 
ing young chap was afterwards hanged, 
by the way.) One day, the two hap- 
pened to meet at the farmer's fence. It 
enclosed his orchard where the famous 
Baldwin flourished. That year was the 



86 Xfncolnics 

off-year, but, as somewhiles occurs, the 
yield, though sparse, comprised some rare 
beauties. There was one, a ' whopper,' 
on which the farmer had centred his 
care as if for a human pet. He looked 
after it well, and saw it heave up into 
plumpness with joy. When Dashing 
Jack came up, he saw his fellow-beau just 
hefting a stone. 

What are you going to do with that 
rock? ' asked he, careless-like, though 
somehow or other interested, too, as we 
are in anything a rival does in the neigh- 
borhood of our sweetheart. 

Why, I was just a-going to see if I 
could knock off that big red apple, that 
is all.* 

You can't do it in the first try ! * 
taunted the dasher. 

Neither can you. Bet ! * 

" Jack would not make any bet with 

plain John, but he took up a pebble and, 

contemptously whistling through his fine 

regular teeth, shied, and, sure as fate! 



Xincolnics 87 

knocked the big Baldwin in the girth and 
sent it hopping off the limb. Then^ as 
the victors are entitled to the spoil, he 
went in, picked up the fruit, and was 
walking up to the house when whom 
should he run up against but the old man ! 
Now, to see that apple off, and to see any 
man munching it like a crab, was too much 
for his nerves. He did not stop to say 
* Meal or Flour .^ ' but, wearing these here 
copper-toed boots such as were a novelty 
in that section 'bout then, he raised the 
young man so that he and the apple, to 
which he clung, landed on this side of 
the fence together, in two-two's. 

" Then .^ well ! then, the plain John 
swallowed a snicker or two, and went right 
in, condoled with the old fellow on his 
loss of the pet Baldy, and asked for the 
girl right slick. 

" Dashing Jack got the apple, but it 
was t' other who got the gal." 

Truly, Douglas secured the senator- 
ship, but Lincoln won the Presidency. 



88 Xlncolnics 

(Another version substitutes a pear for 
the apple, but the gist is the same and 
the application thereof.) 

" After Larger Game." 

In the debates of 1858, Lincoln had 
impaled his adversary on the dilemma: 
" Could a Territory exclude slavery prior 
to a State constitution? " If Douglas 
said " No " he would offend the Illinois 
people and would lose the local prize; if 
he said " Yes/' he would offend the South 
and lose their votes in the coming Presi- 
dential election. Douglas answered eva- 
sively. He won the place in Washington 
for the time, but his " Freeport doctrine," 
or " unfriendly legislation," prohibited 
his carrying the South in the greater 
contest. 

In I860, when Lincoln had won the 
stake for which his rival had been play- 
ing, a friend recalled that, when the weap- 
ons were forged, he had objected to this 



Xincolnics 89 

very one because it wounded the hand that 
made it, and sagely added: 

" We were both right, for the question 
lost Douglas the Presidency but lost you 
the senatorship." 

" I was after larger game/' remarked 
the President. 

Demonstration More than Proof and 
Reason. 

" In the course of my law reading, I 
constantly came upon the word ' demon- 
strate.' I thought, at first, that I un- 
derstood its meaning, but soon became 
satisfied that I did not. I said to myself: 
What do I mean when I ' demonstrate ' 
more than when I * reason ' or ' prove ' ? 
How does * demonstration ' differ from 
any other proof .^ I consulted all the 
dictionaries and books of reference I could 
find, but with no better result. You 
might as well have defined * blue ' to a 
blind man. At last, I said: Lincoln, you 



90 Hincolnics 

can never make a lawyer, if you do not 
understand what * demonstrate ' means. 
I left my situation [law clerk] at Spring- 
field_, went home to my father's house_, 
and stayed there until I could give any 
proposition in the Six Books of Euclid 
at sight. I then found out what * demon- 
strate ' means." 

Lincoln, to Dr. Gulliver, of Norwich, 
Conn., 1859. 

No Surrender. 

" The cause of civil liberty must not 
be surrendered at the end of one or of a 
hundred defeats ! " 

[Letter to Chairman Judd, Republican 
Convention, 1859.] 

American Public Opinion. 

" Public opinion in this country is 
everything." 

Speech in Ohio, 1859. 



Xlncolnics 91 

Natural Perpetual Motion. 

" The mammoth and the mastodon 
have gazed on Niagara. In that long, 
long time, never still for a single moment, 
never dried, frozen, slept, or rested." 

Notes for a Lecture, 1859- 

(Alas ! In fifty years, Niagara is 
threatened to be a dry bed, while the 
water, diverted for utilitarian uses, be- 
comes but the tailraces of mills and fac- 
tories. (" To what base uses we may 
turn!") . 

"The Plain People." 

" I am most happy that the plain peo- 
ple understand and appreciate this." 
Speech, in Ohio, 1859. 

"Wealth Is a Superfluity of What 
We Don't Need." 

President Lincoln to Locke (" Petro- 
leum V. Nasby.") 



92 Xtncolnics 

" I Know that I am Right, because I . 
Know that Liberty Is Right." 

Said to Newton Bateman, Supt. Public 
Instruction, Illinois, I860. 

"Faith in God is Indispensable to 
Successful Statesmanship." 

To N. Bateman, Supt. Public Instruc- 
tion, Illinois, Nov., I860. 

**Understanded of the People." 

Q. — " How did you get this unusual 
power of putting things clearly? 

A. — "Among my earliest recollections, I 
remember how I used to get irritated when 
anybody tallied to me in a way I could 
not understand. ... I can remember 
going into my little bedroom, after hear- 
ing the neighbors talk with my father, 
and trying to make out what was the exact 
meaning of some of their — to me — dark 
sayings. I could not sleep when I got 
on such a hunt after an idea, until I had 



Xfncolnfcs 93 

caught it; and when I thought I had got 
it, I was not satisfied until I had re- 
peated it over and over, and had put it in 
language plain enough, as I thought, for 
any boy I knew to comprehend. This 
was a kind of jjassion with me, and it has 
stuck by me; for I am never easy now 
when I am handling a thought till I have 
bounded it north, and bounded it south, 
and bounded it east, and bounded it west." 
To Dr. Gulliver, Norwich, Conn., 1859. 

The Ideal Income in the Fifties. 

On Lincoln's Eastern tour, with the 
view of making him known outside of his 
** section," he visited New York. Meet- 
ing another of " the Illini," who had pros- 
pered, and who told him that he had made 
a hundred thousand dollars, Lincoln ob- 
served: 

" I have the cottage [a two-story wooden 
frame house, with extension, eight rooms] 
in Springfield, and about eight thousand 



94 XlncoIn(C0 

dollars in money. If they make me Vice- 
President with Seward, as some say they 
will, I hope I shall be able to increase it 
to twenty thousand; and that is as much 
as any man ought to want." 

" Right makes Might." 

** Let us have faith that right makes 
might; and in that faith let us, to the 
end, dare to do our duty as we under- 
stand it." 

Speech at Cooper Institute, N. Y., 
1860. 

"Caesar an* Pompey Berry much 
Alike— 'Specially Pompey ! " 

" I have no prejudice against the 
Southern people. They are just what we 
should be in their situation. If slavery 
did not now exist among them they 
would not introduce it. If it did now 
exist among us we should not instantly 
give it up." 



Xincolntcs 95 

The Lincoln-Hamlin Anagram. 

At the time of the election of the Presi- 
dential ticket comprising Lincoln and 
Hannibal Hamlin^ it was noted that the 
combination of the two names presented 
a peculiar result. 
For instance: 

Ham Lin 
Lin Coin 

Read up and down and then across. 
Now, again: 

Abra-Hamlin-Coln 

Can you find two other names of two 
other men whose official lives and whose 
names combine as these do? 

Whiskers, or No Votes ! 

Towards the end of his first Presiden- 
tial campaign, Lincoln, who had always 
been clean-shaven, a fashion which was 
pretty general in the fifties, astonished 
his friends by growing the hirsute 



96 Uincolnics 

adornment seen in his latest photographs- 
Asked by an intimate friend what had in- 
duced the adoption of the new mode_, he 
answered : 

" Two young ladies at Buffalo wrote me 
that they wanted their fathers and beaux 
to vote for me^ but I was so homely- 
looking that the men refused. The ladies 
insisted that if I would only grow whis- 
kers it would improve my appearance, and 
I would get four more votes ! So I grew 
whiskers." 

Told by Mr. J. H. Littlefield. 

Rather be Assassinated than Sur- 
render Equal Rights. 

These prophetic lines appear in the 
speech of the President-elect made at In- 
dependence Hall, Philadelphia, on the 
22d of February, 1861: 

" But if this country cannot be saved 
without giving up that principle [of equal 
rights], I was about to say I would 



Xtncolnlcs qy 

rather be assassinated on this spot than 
surrender it." 

(The plot^ through apprehension of 
which the President was induced to en- 
ter the seat of Government surreptitiously, 
is now believed to have been a deception.) 

" A Hard Nut to Crack." 

** The authors of the Declaration of 
Independence meant it to be — as, thank 
God, it is now proving itself — a stumbling- 
block to those who in after times might 
seek to turn a free people back into the 
hateful paths of despotism. They knew 
the proneness of prosperity to breed 
tyrants, and they meant when such should 
reappear in this fair land and commence 
their vocation they should find left at 
least one hard nut to crack." 

The Chorus of the Union. 

{To the Southern States:) 
" We are not enemies, but ft lends. We 



q8 Xincolnlcs 

must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it must not break our 
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of 
memory, stretching from every battle-field 
and patriot grave to every living heart and 
hearthstone all over this broad land, will 
yet swell the chorus of the Union, when 
again touched, as surely they will be, by 
the better angels of our nature." 

First Inaugural Address, March 4^ 
1861. 

Take Time I 

*' Nothing valuable can be lost by tak- 
ing time." 

Inaugural Address^, 1861. 

The People Are the Rightful 
Masters. 

" Unless my rightful masters, the 
American people, shall withhold the re- 
quisite means or direct the contrary." 

Inaugurql Address, 1861. 



Xincolntcd 99 

Owners of Our Country. 

" This country, with its institutions, be- 
longs to the people who inhabit it." 

Inaugural Address, I86I. 
Confidence in Popular Justice. 

" Why should there not be a patient 
confidence in the ultimate justice of the 
people." 

Inaugural Address, I86I. 

My War. 

One of the slanders current during the 
outset of the civil strife was that the 
President was merely the figure-head be- 
hind which the Cabinet officers exercised, 
in each capacity, an autocracy. But the 
facts have since proved that nearly every 
important act had the initiative in Lin- 
coln's brain, and nearly all the manifes- 
tation in force from his hand. In the 
annual report of Secretary Cameron, the 
advice was promulgated that the slaves 



TOO Xlncolnics 

should be armed in order to rise success- 
fully against their masters — an idea em- 
bodied in the Emancipation Act, long held 
in abeyance by the President. When the 
latter came to that paragraph in the re- 
port, he scratched it out with his pen, in- 
dignantly remarking : 

" This is a question which belongs ex- 
clusively to me." 

Letting Rooms in a House Afire ! 

After his inauguration, President Lin- 
coln was so continuously beset by office- 
seekers that he was almost compelled to 
neglect measures for the preservation of 
the Union. " If this keeps on," said he, 
" I shall be like a man who is busy let- 
ting lodgings at one end of his house while 
the other end is afire." 

"Accuse not a Servant to his 
Master.'* 

Lincoln's accessibility resembled that of 
the Oriental potentates, enjoined by their 



Xincolnfcs loi 

religion to hear all comers. Like them, 
too, he was mainly approached by per- 
sons with grievances, presented with a 
view of displacing some one from office 
that the complainant might be benefited. 
Lincoln once told an interested denouncer 
of this type to go home and read " Pro- 
verbs xiii., 10." On consulting the book 
the man found these words: 

" Accuse not a servant to his master, 
lest he curse thee, and thou be found 
guilty." 

Either Prince or Premier must be 
Puppet. 

It was a curious fact that W. H. Sew- 
ard was proposed as candidate for the 
Presidency in I860, with Abraham Lin- 
coln as his Vice-President. Consequently, 
the former had prepared himself for the 
foremost position and, no doubt, it har- 
monized with his disposition, when made 
Lincoln's Secretary of State, to have to 
compose^ according to tradition, the 



I02 3Llncolnics 

speeches to foreign ministers and even to 
home delegations. He furnished such a 
paper for the reception of the Swiss Min- 
ister, and sent it by messenger to the 
Chief's hands, who received it as he was 
chatting with some friends. He glanced 
at the document, and, raising his voice to 
imply that here was no state secret, said: 

" Oh, this is a speech Mr. Seward has 
written for me, eh? I guess I may try it 
before these gentlemen, and see how it 
will go." He read it with that spirit of 
burlesque in which, twenty years before, 
when a Congressman, he was wont to re- 
gale the boarding-house table with a 
parody of the members' " speechifying," 
and concluded: " There, I like it! It has 
the merit of originality ! " 

(Fortunately, his speeches were of his 
own emanation, and not in the character 
of the autograph of " John Phoenix," 
" which could be relied on as genuine, as 
it was written for him by one of his most 
intimate friends ! ") 



Xincolnics 103 

When Generals were in Excess. 

At the outset of the Civil War, military 
titles and promotions were the fruit of po- 
litical energy. The Chief of State mer- 
ril}^ said that he had made so many 
brigadier-generals for non-military pur- 
poses that you could hardly throw a stone 
about the capital without hitting one. 
(The N. Y. Mercury correspondent cor- 
roborates this statement in his communi- 
cation to the War Bureau that at any 
hour a regiment could be formed at Wil- 
lard's Hotel bar composed entirely of of- 
ficers.) 

Sorry to Lose the Charger. 

A friend of a brigadier-general who 
had been captured by the enemy, horse, 
boots, and saddle, was thus condoled with 
by the President: 

" I am sorry about the horse." 

" What do you mean, sir ? " 

" Only that I can get a brigadier-gen- 



I04 Xincolnlcs 

eral any day — they are more plentiful 
than drum-majors — but those horses cost 
the Government a hundred and twenty 
dollars a head ! " 



" File It Away in the Stove. 



»»i 



Secretary of War Stanton was both 
naturally and, by virtue of his office, belli- 
cose, and when pestered by a swarm of 
annoyances his temper was often carried 
to a high point. One day, he complained 
to President Lincoln of a major-general, 
who had accused him of favoritism in 
grossly abusive terms. His auditor ad- 
vised him to write a sharp rejoinder. 

" Prick him hard ! " were the words. 

Mr. Stanton read the draft surcharged 
by this backing, while the hearer kept 
favorably commenting: 



^ Readers of " Mark Twain's " writings during 
the War, will recall his expressed belief that 
communications to Government officials at 
Washington were "filed away in the stove." 
Was this a coincidence or a Lincoln echo ? 



Xincolntcs 105 

'* Right ! j ust it ! score him deeply ! 
That 's first rate, Stanton ! " 

But when the gratified author began 
folding up the paper to fit into an enve- 
lope the counsellor interrupted with: 

" What are you going to do with it 
now? 

The Secretary was about to despatch it, 
of course. 

" Nonsense/' said the President, " you 
don't want to send that letter. Put it in 
the stove ! That 's the way I do when I 
have written a letter while I am mad. It 
is a good letter, and you 've had a good 
time writing it, and feel better. Now, 
burn it, and write again." 

Logic is Logic. 

At a ball at the White House, thieves 
made off with many of the hats and over- 
coats of the guests, so that, when ready 
to take leave, Vice-President Hamlin's 
head covering was not to be found. 

" I '11 tell you what, Hamlin," said a 



io6 Xincolnlcs 

friend ; " early in the evening I saw a 
man, possessed of keen foresight, hide his 
hat iip-stairs. I am sure he would be will- 
ing to donate it to the administration, and 
I will go and get it for you." 

When the hat was produced it was 
found to be very much after the style af- 
fected by Hamlin, but it bore a badge of 
mourning, which emblem the Vice-Presi- 
dent ripped off with his penknife. The 
party stood chatting merrily as they 
waited for the carriages to be driven up, 
when a man stepped directly in front of 
Mr. Hamlin and stood staring at the 
" tile " with which his head was covered. 

" What are you looking at, sir ? " asked 
Hamlin sharply. 

" Your hat," answered the man mildly. 
"If it had a weed on it, I should say it 
was mine." 

" Well, it has n't got a weed on it, has 
it?" asked the Vice-President, 

" No, sir," said the hatless man, " it 
has n't." 



Xincolnlcs 107 

"Then it isn't your hat, is it?" said 
the proud possessor of it. 

** No, I guess not/' said the man as he 
turned to walk away. When this little 
scene was explained to President Lincoln, 
he laughed heartily and said: 

" That reminds me, Hamlin, of * the 
stub-tailed cow.* 

" It was a long time ago, when I was 
pioneering and soldiering in Illinois 
[1832], and we put up a joke on some 
officers of the United States Army. My 
party and I were a long way off from the 
comforts of civilized life, and our only 
neighbors were the garrison of a United 
States fort. We did pretty well for ra- 
tions, had plenty of salt meat and flour, 
but milk was not to be had for love or 
money; and as we all longed for the deli- 
cacy, we thought it pretty mean that the 
officers of the fort, who had two cows — a 
stubbed-tailed one and a black and white 
one — offered us no milk, though we threw 
out many and strong hints that it would 



io8 Xincolnics 

be acceptable. At last^ after much consul- 
tation^ we decided to teach them a lesson 
and to borrow or steal one of those cows, 
just as you choose to put it. But how it 
could be done without the cow being at 
once identified and recovered was the 
question. 

" At last we hit on a plan. One of our 
party was despatched a day's ride to the 
nearest slaughter-house, where he pro- 
cured a long red cow's tail to match the 
color of the stub-tailed cow, after possess- 
ing ourselves of which animal we neatly 
tied our purchase to the poor stub, and 
with appetites whetted by long abstinence 
we drank and relished the sweet milk 
which ' our cow ' gave. A few days after- 
ward we were honored by a call from the 
commander of the fort. 

Say, boys,' said he, * we have lost one 
of our cows.' Of course we felt very sorry 
and expressed our regret accordingly. 
' But,' continued the commander, ' I came 
over to say that if that cow of yours had 
a stub tail, I should say it was ours.' 



Xincolnics 109 

But she has n*t a stub tail^ has she ? " 
asked we, sure of our point. 

No/ said the officer, * she certainly 
has not a stub tail.' 

Well, she is n't your cow then/ and 
our argument was unanswerable as was 
Hamlin.'* 

Tell a Horse's Points, not how Many 
Hairs in his Tail. 

So voluminous a report was made by a 
Congressional committee upon a new gun 
that the President pathetically said: " I 
should want a new lease of life to read 
this through. Why cannot an investiga- 
tory committee occasionally exhibit a grain 
of common sense? If I send a man to 
buy a horse for me, I expect to have him 
tell me his points, and not how many 
hairs he has on his tail/* 

An Evasive Answer. 

A committee of Kentuckians went to 
see Abraham Lincoln in I86I, with ref- 



no Xincolnic6 

erence to the abolition of slavery. Many 
Kentuckians owned slaves. They were 
anxious to remain in the Union, but they 
did not want to lose their bondmen. The 
spokesman of the party was a tall man 
of about Lincoln's height. He made an 
eloquent speech, filled with fine sentiments 
and flowery metaphor, and closed with 
a crashing peroration. After he had fin- 
ished, Lincoln looked at him a moment and 
then said quietly: " Judge, I believe your 
legs are as long as mine." 

"A Little More Light and a Little 
Less Noise ! " 

At the outset of the war, when the cam- 
paign was conducted coincidently by the 
chief newspapers, a correspondent of a 
New York journal called to propose still 
another plan to the plan-ridden Presi- 
dent, who listened patiently, then said: 

" Your New York papers remind me of 
a little story. 

" Some years ago, there was a gentle- 



Xlncolnlcs m 

man travelling through Kansas on horse- 
back. There were few settlements and 
no roads^ and he lost his way. To make 
matters worse, as night came on, a terrific 
thunderstorm arose, and peal on peal of 
thunder, following flashes of lightning, 
shook the earth or momentarily illumi- 
nated the scene. The terrified traveller 
then got off and led his horse, seeking to 
guide it as best he might by the flickering 
light of the quick flashes of lightning. All 
of a sudden, a tremendous crash of thun- 
der brought the man to his knees in terror, 
and he cried out; 

" ''O Lord ! if it 's all the same to you 
give us a little more light and a little less 
noise ! 

Take One from Three and— None 
Remain. 

In April, 1861, the patriot statesmen 
of the North were in a state of anxiety, 
as the least precipitate act might cause 
the wavering border States, such as Ten- 



112 XincolntC6 

nessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, to throw 
in their fortunes with the Carolinas, Geor- 
gia, Florida, Mississippi, and Arkansas. 
Nevertheless, a deputation, boiling over 
with impatience arising from patriotic 
wrath, urged the President to do some- 
thing at once. 

He replied with apparent irrelevance: 

" If you fire at three pigeons on a rail, 
and you kill one, how many will be left? " 

There was no delay in the answer: 

"Two!" 

" Oh, no," corrected he ; " there would 
be none left; for the other two, frightened 
by the shot, would have flown away." 

Labor and Capital. 

" ] ''.sk a brief attention. It is to the 
effort- 3 place capital on an equal footing 
with, if not above, labor in the structure 
of government. It is assumed that labor 
is available only in connection with capi- 
tal; that nobody labors unless somebody 



Xiiicolnics 113 

else owning capital somehow, by the use 
of it, induces him to labor. Labor is prior 
to and independent of capital. Capital 
is only the fruit of labor, and could never 
*iave existed if labor had not first existed. 
Labor is the superior of capital, and de- 
serves much the higher consideration." 
Presidential Message, I86I. 

How Long a Man's Legs Should Be. 

The shortest President was William 
H. Harrison, and the tallest was Abraham 
Lincoln. It was not the former, how- 
ever, who put the question of how long a 
man's legs should be, but some impertinent 
jack-a-dandy at a levee. The reply he 
received was as follows: 
J " A man's legs should be long enough 
to reach from his body to the groun' •' 

What is Done for Others V^a 
Think on Most Pleasantly. 

In the fall of I86I, in behalf of a young 
Vermont soldier condemned to death for 



I £4 Xtncolnice 

sleeping on post, Mr. Chittenden, a gov- 
ernment officer, appealed first to the Sec- 
retary of War and finally to the President 
for the life of the youngster. One of the 
complaints of the martinets was that, on 
account of his merciful intercessions, the 
President was a poor Commander-in-chief. 
In this case, however, he promised to sus- 
pend the execution and to act personally. 

Mr. Chittenden demurred at imposing 
another burden on an over-burdened man. 

** Never mind," said Lincoln. " Scott's 
life is as valuable to him as that of any 
person in the land. You remember the 
remark of the Scotchman aboat the head 
of a nobleman who was beheaded: 

** * It was no great head, but it was 
the only one he had.' "^ 

The Vermonter was released and won 



^ In the original story it is a Scotchwoman in 
the Highlands lamenting the decapitation of 
her laird. " It waur na mitch o' a head, 
but, puir body! it waur a' the head the laird 
nad." 



Hincolnics 115 

promotion in his regiment, but he refused 
it. He died as a private, in action at 
Lee's Mills. With his latest breath he 
thanked the President who had allowed 
him to fall like a soldier. Of this valiant 
end Mr. Chittenden acquainted the bene- 
factor, saying: 

" I wish this matter could be written 
into history." 

" None of that," broke in Lincoln. 
" You remember what Jeanie Deans said 
to the English Queen when begging for 
her sister's life:^ 

" * It is not when we sleep saft and 
wake merrily that we think o' ither peo- 
ple's sufferings; but when the hour of 
trouble comes, and when the hour of death 
comes — that comes to high and low — oh, 
then, it is n't what we have done for our- 
sel's, but what we have done for ithers 
that we think on most pleasantly/ " 



' Tlie Heart of Midlothian, by Sir Walter 
Scott. 



ii6 Xincolntcs 

" No Blood on My Skirts." 

One of the many stories showing the 
President's tenderness towards the class 
from which he had sprung is related by 
Mr. Thayer, who got it straight from a 
personal friend of Lincoln. The narrator 
had taken in hand the deliverance of a 
soldier, doomed to death for falling asleep 
on " sentry-go." Lincoln wrote the par- 
don, and remarked: 

"It is not to be wondered at that a boy 
raised on a farm, probably in the habit 
of going to bed at dusk, should, when re- 
quired to watch all night, fall asleep. I 
cannot consent to shoot him for such an 
act. I could not think of going into 
eternity with that poor young man's blood 
on my skirts." 

The soldier was killed at Fredericks- 
burg; and on his bosom was found a 
photograph of Lincoln with the legend: 
" God bless President Lincoln ! " 



I 



Xlncolnics 117 

It Does Not Hurt Me and Pleases 
Her. 

In October, I86I, General Phelps, in 
taking possession of Ship Island, near 
New Orleans, issued a proclamation man- 
umitting the slaves.^ At this time, the 
President, while devoted to general free- 
dom, was not committed to the wholesale 
liberation. Yet he took no official notice 
of the premature act. The matter being 
brought insistently before him, he finally 
rej oined : 

" I feel about that a good deal as a 
man — ^whom I will call Jones — did about 
his wife. He was one of those meek men 
and had the reputaton of being * hen- 
pecked.' At last, one day, his wife was 

1 When, later, General Fremont, command- 
ing our army in the West, did a similar act, 
the President curbed him, stating that the 
Emancipation would be performed in due 
course, but by his own initiative. It was clear 
that not a few who aimed at the Presidential 
chair itched to hurl this thunderbolt. 



ii8 Xincolnics 

seen switching him out of the house. A 
day or two afterwards, a friend met him 
on the street and said: 

" ' Jones, I 've always stood up for you, 
as you know, but I am not going to do 
it any longer. Any man who will stand 
quietly and take a switching from his wife 
deserves to be horsewhipped.' 

" * Now, don't,' replies Jones, looking 
up with a wink and patting him on the 
back. * Why, it did n't hurt me any, and 
you have no idea what a power of good 
it did Mary Ann.' "i 

Stanton Murdered Sleep ! 

Contrary to the expectation of the ** in- 
telligent foreigner " who pried into our 
affairs when we were having our spring 
cleaning of traitors and the like parasites, 
it was not the Upstart from the West who 



* The original story is told of an English 
"navvy," lusty and amply able to endure, 
whose wife was by comparison frail and feeble. 



XincoInlc6 119 

was the ** Sir Anthony Absolute " of the 
capital, but Stanton, the Secretary of 
War. He was not always losing his tem- 
per, as he had never found it from the 
first slip immediately after swearing him- 
self into office. He was the bogey of the 
swarm of political beggars, and a predes- 
tined buffer — not to say chevaux-de-frise 
' — for the badgered President. " Go to 
Stanton " was in the latter's mouth what 
" Get thee into the Bastille ! " was to King 
Louis XIV. of France. Lincoln said he 
got no rest between Stanton and the pest- 
erers. " No government could sleep 
soundly while such a man as Secretary 
Stanton was stamping about in the corri- 
dors kicking chairs over and snapping 
bell cords." It was asserted that the im- 
perious Anthony ruled the Caesar ; but 
the former's private secretary, who often- 
est saw the two dignitaries together, totally 
denies this statement. At all events the 
superior had a high opinion of his 
lieutenant. 



I20 Xlncolnfcs 

If Stanton Said So, It Must 
Be So! 

A Western committee was referred to 
Secretary Stanton; he jeered at their 
scheme to transfer Western and Eastern 
troops for one another, and on hearing 
that the committee had the President's ap- 
proval clinched his reply by averring dis- 
respectfully : 

" Then he is a dead-sure fool ! " 

This was repeated to the President, who 
pondered a while and then, looking up, 
merely said : 

"If Stanton said I was a dead-sure fool, 
then I must be one, for Stanton is nearly 
always right and generally says what he 
means." 

But, in the interest of peace, he never- 
theless threw a sop to Cerberus, probably 
such a good story that even the Crying 
Philosopher would have laughed over it. 

Told by Mr. G. W. Julian. 



* Xincolnlcs 121 

" Keep Silent, and We Will Get You 
Safe Across.'* 

In the sixties, one of the most-talked- 
about of men was the French rope-walker, 
Blondin, who crossed Niagara Falls on 
a rope, often carrying a man on his back. 
On being asked why the living burden 
kept so absolutely immovable, he grimly 
replied: " I tell him if he move, and it is 
life or death for one or both, I shall 
drop him ! So he cling tight ! '* 

From the beginning of his occupation 
of the White House, Lincoln kept up the 
democratic tradition of " open house." 
Then began the endless stream of clients, 
which often angered the ush^s and em- 
barrassed the chief. On one occasion, af- 
ter having listened with his unalterable 
patience to a delegation, the President 
said: 

" That reminds me of Blondin the acro- 
bat. Gentlemen, suppose all the property 
you were worth was in gold, and you had 



122 Xincolntcs ' 

13ut it on the back of Blondin to carry 
across the Niagara River on a rope, would 
you shake the cable, or keep shouting to 
him: 

" * Blondin, stand up a little straighter ! 
stoop a little more ! lean a little more to 
the north ! lean a little more to the south ' ? 

" No, you would hold your breath as 
well as your tongue, and keep your hands 
off until he was safe over. The Govern- 
ment is carrying an immense weight. 
Untold treasures are in their hands. They 
are doing the best they can. Don't badger 
them. Keep silent, and we will get you 
safe across." 

Name the Brand of Whiskey and 
I '11 Send Some to All my Generals. 

The actual course of events quite over- 
came the old wise saws in Washington 
when, like the capital of Judea, " the ene- 
mies had cast a trench about it, and com- 
passed it round and kept it in 
on every side/' while, likewise, threaten- 



Xincolntcs 123 

ing " to lay it even with the ground." 
Fault-finders and counsellors alike seemed 
as futile as the soldier-chiefs. Even 
when the news of the battle of Pittsburg 
Landing arrived, betokening a new light 
in the West, the cavillers still carped at 
" our only general," and belittled Grant 
by asserting that his spirit was due to be- 
ing fortified by whiskey. His chief sup- 
port, they had no hesitancy in declaring, 
was " leaning on the whiskey cask." 

To a deputation of Prohibitionists, our 
" First Consul " blandly replied with af- 
fected eagerness: 

" Gentlemen, if you can name the par- 
ticular brand of whiskey General Grant 
uses I shall thank you, for I just want to 
send a barrel to every one of my other 
generals a-field." 

Did His Work Well, but Always 
Squealed. 

Secretary Stanton laid before the Presi- 
dent some papers which appeared to show 



124 Xincolnlcs 

that a certain Northern war governor, 
v/hile zealously supporting the cause and 
furthering it from his State's means and 
men, liked to do things in his own way. 
Thwarted in this, he was apt to impede 
movements which the chief military office 
intended to direct wholly. 

The Executive read the documents, but 
did not share Mr. Stanton's apprehensions. 
On the contrary he smiled in his meaning 
way, and proceeded to say in his gentle, 
humorous voice: 

" Your Governor reminds me of a boy 
whom I once saw at a launching. When 
a ship is ready to be launched, you know, 
the keel hangs on but by one point, where 
a ' dog * is to be knocked away. This was 
only a small concern, and, instead of a 
giant with a maul, a small boy was regu- 
larly employed to remove the shore. All 
he had to do was strike one smart blow, 
and lie right down in the hollow of the 
ways, whereupon the hull would slide 
clean over him in an instant. But the 



Xincolnics 125 

boy must needs begin to * holler ' as soon 
as the mass glided over him, and you 
would think by the yelling he was being 
murdered all the time of the passage. I 
myself thought the hide was being scraped 
from his back; but he was not hurt at 
all. 

" The shipwright-boss told me that this 
lad was always chosen for the job, being 
* peart ' and spry, that he did his feat well, 
never had been grazed even, but that he 
always hollered in that way. 

" Now, that 's the way with our Gov- 
ernor Blank. He will do his work right 
enough, but he must squeal ! We get good 
work; so let him do his squealing! " 

Tackle One of Your Own Size . 

P. T. Barnum, the showman, endeavored 
to repeat the success he had met with all 
over the world in his exhibition of " Gen- 
eral Tom Thumb " by presenting another 
dwarf, "Commodore" Nutt. In 1862 they 



126 ILincoInicd 

were at Washington, and in accordance 
with his usual method^ in order to obtain 
a good advertisement from our uncrowned 
head, Barnum " engineered " it so that he 
should be invited to the White House with 
his celebrity. The Cabinet were assem- 
bled and the President introduced the Lil- 
liputian to them. The manager relates: 

"After a little joking Mr. Lincoln bent 
down his long, lank body, and taking 
Nutt by the hand said: 

Commodore, permit me to give you a 
parting word of advice. When you are 
in command of your fleet, if you find 
yourself in danger of being taken pris- 
oner, I advise you to wade ashore ! ' 

" The commodore let his gaze travel up 
the whole length of Mr. Lincoln's ex- 
tremely long legs, and replied, quietly: 

" * I guess, Mr. President, you could 
do that better than I could ! ' " 

" Butler or No Butler, Here Goes ! " 

Early in 1862, before General Butler 



Xlncolnlcs 127 

had entire sway at New Orleans, and was 
yet acquiring repute for inflexibility and 
independence, a soldier under his flag 
was condemned to death. The circum- 
stances were such that his Congressman 
would not undertake the cause, and the 
Secretary of War, because of his severity, 
was deemed hopeless of approach by 
the grieving father who had hastened to 
the capital to endeavor to save his boy. 
In this dilemma, a passing sympathizer 
brought him into the Presidential pres- 
ence, where he pleaded for his son's life. 
Unfortunately, the President had lately 
rectived a somewhat impertinent letter 
from General Butler, praying him not to 
interfere in cases of discipline, as it un- 
dermined the morale of the army. The 
announcement of this fact completed tJie 
mourner's distress, and his cry of anguish 
was so poignant that the President 
snatched up his pen and, with the in- 
genuity of a benevolent Machiavelli, 
wrote : 



128 Xincolnics 

"J. S. is not to be shot until further 
orders from me." 

" Butler or no Butler, here goes ! " he 
added. 

Through his streaming tears the trem- 
bling father could hardly read the precious 
lines, but then was aghast to find that he 
had not received a pardon. 

Lincoln smiled at his fears and said: 

" I see you are not acquainted with 
me, old friend. If your son never looks 
on death till further orders from me to 
shoot him, he will live to be a great deal 
older than old Methuselah ! " 

Such instances of his mercy, and of his 
belief that " shooting did no good to any 
man," were numerous. 

No Going behind a Good Point. 

Congressman Kellogg came before 
President Lincoln on behalf of the son 
of a constituent. The young man, after 
gallantry as a soldier, had fallen under 



Xfncolntcs 129 

condemnation. Extenuating circumstances 
also pleaded for him, but the hearer was 
most touched by the record of his being 
wounded under the flag. 

" Kellogg, is there not something in 
the Bible about the shedding of blood re- 
mitting sins? " 

The suitor assented. 

" Well, that is a good point, and there 's 
no going behind it ! " returned the arbi- 
ter, filling up and signing a pardon. 

It was more evidence in favor of his 
truism that the burden of the war fell 
" most heavily on the soldier." 



" How many Legs Will a Sheep 
Have?" 

President Lincoln replied to a depu- 
tation, one of many urging immediate 
slave-emancipation when the proposition 
was not yet framed as a bill: 

" If I issue a proclamation now, as you 

9 



I30 Xincolnlcs 

suggest, it will be as ineffectual as the 
Pope's bull against the comet. It can- 
not be forced. Now, by way of illustra- 
tion, — how many legs will a sheep have 
if you call his tail a leg.^ " 

They all answered: " Five." 

" You are mistaken, for calling a tail 
a leg does not make it so." 



"Prayer and Praise Go Together." 

In 1862, in the spring, the President 
suffered family bereavement and distress 
together with heart-rending news from 
the battle front, where the Union reverses 
were repeated. But at the very time 
when one son of Lincoln was laid to rest, 
and another was menaced with the same 
fate, the fall of Fort Donelson was re- 
ported. In his affliction, the father had 
been supported by a pious nurse who en- 
joined prayer upon him. 



Ulncolnics 131 

" There is nothing like prayer/' she 
persisted. 

Beaming with the unexpected good 
news, he replied: 

"Yes, there is: praise! Prayer and 
praise must go together." 

If I Were So Skeered I Should Go 
Home! 

In March, 1862, the Merrimac, the first 
ironclad known, attacked and destroyed 
half of the U. S. Navy at Newport News.^ 
The alarm among the monetary and mer- 
cantile classes was at first paralyzing, 



' Early in 1863, there were rumors that a 
colossal engine of naval destruction was on the 
ways at Newport News ; but though it was 
generally believed probable that the invention 
of a novelty in maritime warfare was quite 
possible by an intelligent people like our South- 
ern brothers, the Government must haA^e been 
misled either by want of, or by false information, 
and the rumor was mocked at in official circles. 
The Merrimac was not only a floating battery 
but had a ramming prow like those of ancient 



132 Xincolnice 

but as soon as there was a revival of 
spirit, though not of courage, a deputation 
of New York financiers and merchants, 
representing untold wealth, hurried to the 
seat of government to demand of the 
Chief protection for the coast cities; the 
Merrimac was considered to be seaworth3\ 
" Gentlemen," said Lincoln, after re- 
garding them and noting the evidences of 
rapid travel, their dismay at being near 
the battle-fields, and their expression of 
utter helplessness, " the Government has 
got no ship that I know of that can meet 
the Merrimac. [The Monitor was then 

galleys. On Saturday, the 8th of March, 1862, 
this unknown construction revealed herself to 
the eyes of the Federal sentinels at Fortress 
Monroe, and the lookouts on the men-of-war 
under it saw " The Horror of the War" which 
was contrary to all ideas of naval craft. It was 
a low-lying hulk, covered with railroad iron so 
as to be bomb-proof and as stated, supplied with 
a beak to pierce, and by the immense weight 
behind it to crush in any obstacle encountered 
when under full speed. The ironclad steadily 
charged the blockading squadron, singling out 



Xiiicolnics 133 

an unknown quantity.] There is no money 
in the treasury, and our credit is none of 
the best. I don't know anything that we 
can do, but if I had as much money as 
you say you have, and I was as sheered 
as you are, I 'd go home and protect my 
own property." 

Another version reads : " I 'd go home, 
build some war vessels, and present them 
to the Government." Old Commodore 
Vanderbilt had set the example by giving 
an ocean steamship. 

the Cumberland, as most worthy of her prowess. 
She stood the frigate's broadsides without the 
least injury and rammed and sank the vessel 
in less than an hour. The Congress also struck 
her colors to the monster, and then the victor 
slowly retired. Consternation was left in 
her wake for nothing seemed able to beat 
off this new engine of war. The next day, 
however she was faced with another and 
more novel machine for ocean action, the 
Monitor. 

While the rumors in regard to the formidable 
nature of the rebel ram Merrimac, were flying 
about, counter tales were circulated in New 



134 XtncolniCi3 

He Furnished the Stone for the 
Sling. 

Engineer Ericsson's plan for that nov- 
elty in naval warfare, the Monitor, was at 
first rejected by the Naval Board, but 
was upheld by President Lincoln, who 
maintained, against the opinion of the 
consulting engineers that the weight of 
armor was a matter of calculation. " On 
the Mississippi we used to figure to a 
pound what our flatboats and steamboats 
could carry." (He had built the former 
class with his own hands.) 

When the dread Merrimac, rebel iron- 
clad ram, was understood to be about to 

York about another strange vessel, built by 
Ericsson, i\\Q Monitor, which was hurried to the 
scene of action. The Merrimac came forth on 
Sunday morning to renew her terrible de- 
struction, and a duel ensued between the two 
champions. The little "cheese-box on a plank," 
the invention of the famous Swede, with two 
guns only in the turret, bore the ponderous 
broadsides with immunity and finally forced a 
retreat. The insignificant stickle-back had 



Xlncolnics 135 

issue from port, at Newport News, on 
the offensive, and the Monitor was not yet 
reported, though at sea, the President 
alone had faith in the latter. 

" I believed in the Monitor when her 
designs were first shown me. I caught 
some of the inventor's enthusiasm. I 
think she may be the veritable sling with 
the stone to smite this Philistine Merrimac 
in the forehead." 

The Confederate terror emerged, in- 
flicted vast damage on the Federal fleet, 
and retired for a renewal of the struggle, 
or rather for further devastation. In the 
meantime the Monitor arrived, threw her- 
self between ram and butt, and drove her 
giant adversary back into covert. 
" Throw but a stone — the monster dies ! " 

conquered the hippopotamus. The Confederate 
champion was disabled and had to be towed 
into Norfolk. From that day on, the type of the 
Monitor, with certain modifications, prevailed in 
naval construction. She was like the Circas- 
sion in his chain mail compared to the Crusader 
in massive plate armor. 



136 Xincolnics 

The Assistant Secretary of the Navy 
acknowledged the inestimable debt to the 
'inventor, Ericsson, and added that the 
credit for the actual construction of the 
terror-destroyer was entirely due to 
President Lincoln. 

Take to the Woods! 

The Spanish difficulty, which has popped 
up ever since there was an Expansion 
movement, arose during the War. Santo 
Domingo was then at daggers drawn and 
fleshed with Old Spain; and the Cabinet 
held a consultation upon the point whether 
we should aid the monarchy and, in a 
way, suppress the filibustering actions, or 
openly espouse the cause of colonial free- 
dom. " Cuba free " was talked about, 
but even such expeditions as that of Lopez, 
which involved some of our daring citi- 
zens, had not implicated the Government. 
The Abolitionists, of course, sympathized 
with the revolted colony. The President 
was supposed to owe a great deal of his 



Xincolntcs 137 

support to this class. Appealed to, he 
said: 

" That reminds me of the negro at the 
camp-meeting. The preacher was, in his 
excitement, rather confused in his quota- 
tions. He cited the text as offering the 
two roads, saying: ' Dar are two roads 
afore ye, brethren: de narrer road, which 
leadeth to destruction; and de broad road, 
which leadeth right on to damnation ! ' 
* In dat case ' responded a hearer, rising 
to suit the action to the word, * dis chile 
takes to de woods ! ' " 

Hayti was recognized as an indepen- 
dent power, April, 1862, as had been done 
by Europe. The President advocated 
strict neutrality. 

"Ain't We Glad to Git Out of the 

Wilderness!" 

{Popular negro minstrel song of the 

time.') 

In June, 1862, the daring cavalry raid 

by Colonel Stuart, a.round the Union army 



138 Xincolnics 

of McClellan, bringing Mars to the six- 
mile limits threw the inhabitants of Wash- 
ington into consternation. To a person of 
consequence who made anxious inquiries 
of the Chief, the latter replied with ap- 
prehension rarely shown by him: 

" There is no news from the Army of 
the Potomac. I do not know whether we 
have any army ! " 

The interlocutor said fervently: 

"If we do right, I believe that God 
will lead us safely out of the Wilderness/' 
— the usual designation of the brush tan- 
gle about the Potomac River Valley. 

" My faith is greater than yours/' re- 
joined Lincoln; "I, too, believe that if 
we do right God will lead us safely out 
of the Wilderness. I hope that a bright 
morning will follow this dark hour that 
now fills us with alarm. Indeed, my faith 
tells me it will be so." (The battle of 
Malvern Hill soon verified this faith.) 

Recounted by ex-Senator Jas. F. Wil- 
son. 



Xincolnics 139 

"Be on the Lord's Side." 

A member of the churchy being at a 
Presidential reception, closed some re- 
marks with the pious hope that the Lord 
would be " on our side." 

" I am not at all concerned about that/' 
commented the President, " for we know 
that the Lord is always on the side of 
the right. But it is my constant anxiety 
and prayer that I and this nation should 
be on the Lord's side." 

Another Evasive Answer. 

In the darkest hours of the Virginia 
campaign, July, 1862, a New York Dem- 
ocratic M. C, John Gannon, of Buffalo, 
who had supported the Republican Chief 
through thick and thin, deemed himself 
therefore privileged beyond all other in- 
quisitors to receive intelligence of the 
movements of the army. The military 
situation was so critical that it was im- 
possible for an outsider to be given any 



I40 Uincolnice 

information. The President looked at 
Gannon a moment, and then, his eye 
catching the glint of the lustrous ivory- 
front of the Congressman, whose face and 
forehead were as clean as a Chinaman's, 
returned : 

" Gannon, how clean you shave ! ** 

" A Private Has as Much Right to 
Justice as a Major-General." 

Senator J. F, Wilson, in pleading the 
case of a soldier wrongfully accused of 
desertion, met with the cordial approba- 
tion of President Lincoln, but found the 
Secretary of War inexorable. The un- 
flagging advocate re-appealed " to Cae- 
sar " and procured an over-riding order 
which the Secretary, after another pro- 
test, finally obeyed. On reporting the 
sequel to the Chief, the latter said: 

" Well, I am glad you stuck to it, 
and that it ended as it did; for I meant 
it should so end if I had to give it per- 
sonal attention. A private soldier has as 



Xincolnlcs 141 

much right to justice as a major- 
general." 

True Intellectual Economy. 

" I never let any idea escape me, but 
write it on a scrap of paper, and put it 
in a drawer. In that way I save my best 
thoughts on a subject, and such things 
often come in a kind of intuitive way more 
clearly than if one were to sit down and 
deliberately reason them out. To save 
the results of such mental action is true 
intellectual economy. It not only saves 
time and labor, but also the very best ma- 
terial the mind can supply for unexpected 
emergencies."^ 

Lincoln to Senator Wilson, 1862. 



' An unconscious echo of this helpful hint to 
the art of composition is met witii in Henri 
Miirger, author of La Vie en Bolieme. Tlie 
French author also impressed on his brothers 
of the pen the wisdom of keeping a common- 
place book, as the time would come when its 
reservoir of ideas "written out" would be 
invaluable to the man of letters. So, "great 
wits jump." 



142 Xincolnics 

Cheering Not Military. 

After the reverses of Bull Run, Aug. 2, 
1862, the President went out to visit and 
encourage the soldiers. As he was about 
to review the command under Colonel 
(afterwards General) Sherman, the latter 
asked for a speech, but, in kindness to 
the civilian's ignorance, remarked that 
cheering was not military and that he 
hoped the orator would not draw out any 
boisterousness. The forces were raw re- 
cruits and were profoundly demoralized 
at the moment by a repulse, the vibration 
of which extended to Maine. According 
to Sherman, the speaker made " one of 
the neatest, best, and most feeling ad- 
dresses ever listened to." The hearers 
were strongly inclined to cheer, but the 
President checked them with the dry, droll 
remark : 

" Don't cheer, boys ! I confess that I 
rather like it myself, but Colonel Sherman 
here says it is n't military ; and I guess 
we had better defer to his opinion." 



Xincolnfcs 143 

** Old Inflexible " Foreseen. 

During the lax discipline at the outset 
of the war^ a soldier ventured, in his su- 
perior's presence, to break ranks at a re- 
view and go up to the President and blurt 
out: 

" Mr. President, I have a cause for 
grievance. I went to speak to Colonel 
Sherman, and he threatened to shoot me." 

Repeating the charge, the hearer looked 
from the denunciator to the Colonel; then, 
bending his tall form towards the soldier, 
said in his thin, piping voice, which, how- 
ever, always " carried well," so that the 
regiment overhead : " Well, if I were you, 
and Colonel Sherman had threatened to 
shoot me, I would n't trust him ! for I 
believe he would do it ! '* 

Save the Union ! 

" My paramount object in this struggle 
is to save the Union." 

Rejoinder to Horace Greeley, Aug., 
1862. On base of the Lincoln 
statue, Chicago. 



144 Hiwcolnice 

" My Hope of Success Is in God's 
Justice and Goodness." 

" My hope of success, in this great and 
terrible struggle, rests on that immovable 
foundation, the justice and goodness of 
God. And when events are very threat- 
ening, and prospects very dark, I still 
hope that all will be well in the end, be- 
cause our cause is just and God is on 
our side." 

To a deputation of clergy; the Rev. 
Dr. Gurley, present, the relater. 

The Quiet Past Versus the Stormy 
Present. 

" The dogmas of the quiet past are in- 
adeqiuite to the stormy present." 

Presidential Message, Sept., 1862. 

"The Union First and Foremost — 
Slavery Afterwards." 
In Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley, 
August 22, 1862, occurs the above passage 
demonstrating that the word had dis- 
placed the purse. 



Xincolnics 145 

" Freedom Is the Last, Best Hope of 
Earth ! " 

Presidential Message, Sept., 1862. 

"Who Would Be Free, Themselves 
Must Strike ! " 

" Disenthrall ourselves, and then we 
shall save ourselves." 

Presidential Message, Sept., 1862. 

" We Cannot Escape History.'* 

Presidential Message, Sept., 1862. 

The Butcher's Bill. 

" It is much, very much, that this would 
cost no blood at all." 

Message recommending the adoption of 
the resolutions concerning amnesty, 
of the united Houses, 1862. 

"To Have Good Soldiers, Treat 
Them Rightly." 

Said to Senator Jas. F. Wilson, 1862, 



146 Xlncolnics 

A Rule Without Exception. 

*' When a man is sincerely penitent for 
his misdeeds, and gives satisfactory evi- 
dence of the same, he can safely be par- 
doned, and there is no exception to the 
rule." 

Lincoln, as to his Amnesty Act. 

What Use Is a Second Term to a 
Man Without a Country ? 
If there was any pang comparable to 
that experienced by President Lincoln 
when he suspended the Habeas Corpus 
Act it must have been when he con- 
sented to the Draft Act and imitated des- 
potic rulers, in tearing the hopes and 
the props of the home from the roof-tree. 
But he did not flinch and when the new 
military chief. General Grant, asked for 
three hundred thousand men to " fight it 
out on that line though it took all sum- 
mer," he could firmly state that he had 
called for five hundred thousand. It was 
then that he said in self-defence : " What 



Xiiicolnlc0 147 

use to me would be a second term if I 
had no country?" 

One Dies but Once. 

A widow woman of his early acquaint- 
ance approached Lincoln, when President, 
to renew the friendship, for he had saved 
her son from a false charge of murder 
without any expense, though it had cost 
him precious time during his campaign for 
the senatorship in 1858. Like a good 
many persons in the West, who had known 
him in his despondent period and who 
were superstitious, she shared in the be- 
lief which his stepmother had also en- 
tertained that he was not destined to live 
to a great age. 

" Hannah Armstrong," he said, smil- 
ing, in his mysterious way, " if they do 
kill me, I shall never die another death ! " 

Lincoln's " Leg Cases." 

When the people in Washington saw 
the lights burning late in the Executive 



fc 



148 3LlncoInic5 

Mansion, though there was no Cabinet 
council, they would say, explanatorily, 
for the benefit of the stranger in the 
capital : 

" That is the President, sitting up over 
private business. It is his great heart. 
He is trying to reconcile it with military 
duty, I guess, — going to try to let off 
some foolish or rash young fellow for the 
sake of his old folks." 

There was, for example, the case of a 
deserter, whose old father sent a despatch 
to Senator .'essenden, pleading that he 
could shortly provide proofs that the 
young man was not an offender, but im- 
ploring time. The operator strove to 
discover the whereabouts of the senator^ 
as he had not his address. On finding 
him and communicating the intelligence, 
the senator promptly hastened to the 
President, and had the satisfaction of 
" redeeming the captive " on the eve of 
execution. 
Schuyler Colfax relates another of these 



Xtncolnlcs 149 

cases of clemency, but one which was not 
as deserving as the above. Judge Holt 
had the matter in hand and brought the 
papers to the President to have him sign 
the death-Avarrant. Lincoln's leniency 
was a football between himself and the 
War Department. 

" This case/' said the Judge, " is one 
which comes exactly within your require- 
ments. The soldier does not deny his 
guilt; he Avill better serve the country 
dead than living, as he has no relations 
to mourn for him, and he is not fit to be 
in the ranks of patriots, at any rate.'* 
Mr. Lincoln's refuge of excuse was all 
swept away. Judge Holt expected, of 
course, that he would write " Approved " 
on the paper; but the President, running 
his long fingers through his hair, as he so 
often used to do when in anxious thought, 
replied, " Well, after all. Judge, I think 
I must put this with my leg cases." 

"Leg cases," said Judge Holt, with a 
frown at this supposed levity of the Presi- 



150 Xincolnics 

dent^ in a case of life or death. " What 
do you mean by leg cases, sir? " 

" Why/' replied Mr. Lincoln, " do you 
see these papers crowded into those pig- 
eon-holes? They are the cases that you 
call by that long title, ' cowardice in the 
face of the enemy/ but I call them, for 
short, my ' leg cases.' But I put it to 
you, and I leave it for you to decide for 
yourself: If Almighty God gives a man 
a cowardly pair of legs how can he help 
their running away with him? " 

How true was the ancient saying: " It 
is wise to know when to play the jester " ! 

This may remind one of the story told 
of King Henry of Navarre (Fourth of 
France) who, being seized with nervous 
trembling at the outset of a battle, cried 
to his staff: " Oh, cowardly custard of 
a body! do you quake now? I will take 
you to a hot corner where you will have 
something to shake f or ! " whereupon he 
spurred into the heat of the conflict with 
his quivering body. 



Xfncolnics 151 

"Don't Swap Horses Crossing the 

Stream." 

In the troubled days when Washington 
and Richmond scowlingly confronted each 
other our " Delenda est Carthago ! " re- 
sounded in the Senates on the Potomac 
and on the James. The fleeting show of 
commanders for the Union forces^ a new 
head quickly replacing a decapitated 
chief, emboldened the wire-pullers who 
had a supply of round puppets for the 
square hole. Driven to the wall by this 
persistent sinning against the hallowed 
rule never to retire a general under the 
enemy's fire, the President, nominally 
generalissimo, replied to an importunate 
trumpeter of still another Bonaparte: 

" There is a good old saying in the sec- 
tion of the country where I came from: 
* Don't swap horses crossing the stream.' " 

The story in detail is as follows: 

Two men were travelling in the Blue 
Grass country where the rivers run bank- 



152 Xincolnics 

high during a freshet. They stopped at 
what wasj in drier times, a ford. The 
clay had dyed the foaming waters the 
color of madder, and the crossing was 
only discernible to the mind's eye. 
Nevertheless, relying on the intelligence 
of their horses both men rode into the an- 
gry waters. When a third of the way over, 
the excellence of their mounts in battling 
with the obstacles encountered elicited 
frank expressions of 23raise. When half- 
way over, the animals still meriting eul- 
ogy, spite of pitfalls, mudholes, and 
" sawyers," they paused and, ignoring 
their fix, continued to praise their steeds. 
Only, each commended the other's 
propert3^ 

Totally unfit as was the time and the 
place for a " trade," they actually struck 
hands on an exchange of beasts and, what 
was more preposterous, though showing 
what accomplished horsemen they were,^ 



^ Though it may seem hard to believe, the 
writer has seen a Mexican, for exhibition in 
a race of some length, transfer himself from 



Xincolnics 153 

they undertook to change from one saddle 
to the other. It is needless to say that 
the attempt came to grief, as at the criti- 
cal moment, when neither was seated, a 
sudden swelling of the flood carried both 
off their standing and forced them to 
swim to shore. The horses were swejDt 
away and probably came to an anchorage 
under the bluffs. They had to cast about 
to make a fire and dry their clothes. 
Then in their buckskin breeches, fitting 
torturously tight, they tracked it home on 
foot, where they had to relate their rash 
adventure. Hence the tale and the 
moral : 

" Do not swap horses in crossing the 
stream." 

Plow Around the Log. 

The absolute newness of military con- 



one saddle to another without halt. The ques- 
tion being put to him in relation to this tale. 
"Leon, could ?/o?t swap saddles in a flood?" 
He stoutly responded, not knowing the joke: 
" If it did not come over the bow to make the 
seat slippery, why — certero ! certT^ 



154 3LincolniC6 

scription in the United States and the 
indefatigable attempts of nearly all con- 
cerned to avoid their obligations gave rise 
to many contentions. A State governor, 
charged with his con-citizens' grievances 
and his own consequent embarrassments, 
rushed to Secretary Stanton and was re- 
ceived in a manner quite in accordance 
with that official's overbearing character; 
thereupon he hastened to the President 
to rehearse his reception as an additional 
matter to be remedied. To the amaze- 
ment of a friend he came from a three 
hours' interview appeased, and departed 
smilingly for home. 

His introductor no sooner saw the 
Chief than he eagerly inquired by what 
concessions he had pacified the irritated 
governor and sent him away in good 
humor. 

" Oh, I did not concede anything," ex- 
plained the President. *' You know how 
the Illinois farmer managed the big log 
that lay in the middle of his field? To 



Xincolnics 155 

the inquiries of his neighbors one Sun- 
day, he responded that he had got rid of 
the big log. 

How ever did you do it? It was too 
big to haul away, too knotty to split, too 
wet and soggy to burn; how ever did you 
do it?' 

"'Well, now, boys,' said the farmer, 
' if you won't tell the secret, I '11 tell you 
how. I just plowed around it.' 

" Now," said Lincoln to the questioner, 
"don't tell anybody, but I just 'plowed 
around ' the governor. But it took me 
three mortal hours to do it, and I was 
afraid every minute that he would see what 
I was at." 

Related by General J. B. Fry. 

" I will Risk the Dictatorship." 

" I have placed you at the head of 
the Army of the Potomac. . . I have 
heard ... of your recently saying that 
both the army and the Government 
needed a dictator. Of course it was 



156 Xlncolnics 

not for this, but in spite of it, that I have 
given you the command. . . What I 
now ask of you is military success, and 
I will risk the dictatorship ! " 

Letter to General Hooker, Jan., 1863. 

Still Heard From. 

In the fall of 1863, when General Burn- 
side had penetrated so far within the 
enemy's lines in Tennessee that his situ- 
ation was regarded as critical, a telegram 
reached headquarters stating that " firing 
was heard towards Knoxville. " 

" I am glad of it ! " exclaimed the 
President. Asked the cause of his glad- 
ness, he returned: " Because I am re- 
minded of Mrs. Sallie Ward, a neighbor 
of mine, who had a large family. Occa- 
sionally, one of her numerous progeny 
would be heard crjdng from some out-of- 
the-way place, upon which Mrs. Ward 
would exclaim: 

Thank the Lord, there *s one of my 
children is n't dead yet.' " 



Xincolnfc6 157 

Nobility Not a Bar in our Army. 

A foreign officer who tendered his ser- 
vices to the country, and was promised a 
commission, thought it a clincher to an- 
nounce that he had other than military 
claims to the favor, and mentioned his 
letter of nobility. 

" Oh, never mind," said the President, 
" you will find that no obstacle to your 
advancement." 

" Take the People into our 

Confidence." | 

In 1863, President Lincoln had full 
powers and was as nearl}?^ an autocrat as a 
constitutional ruler could be; but as far 
as possible, he in no way relaxed the 
frank and neighborly manner which he 
had imported from the free-and-easy 
West. A reporter once stated that he 
had been invited to attend a meeting of 
the war governors in Washington, and 
that the President had sanctioned the in- 



158 Xincolntcs 

vitation. But at the meeting one of the 
officials objected to the presence of an 
" outsider " and the reporter was making 
off when Lincohi intervened. 

" Wait a minute^ young man/' said he, 
and then explained that he had consented 
to his being present — " for I don't intend 
to say anything to-day that is secret in 
any sense," he continued, " and I thought 
we might just as well take the people into 
our confidence. However, it is for you 
gentlemen to say." 

The position had become so uncomfort- 
able for the newspaper man that he bowed 
himself out. He never knew what fur- 
ther was said about it, but that night 
Governor Buckingham gave him a report 
of the meeting. 

Better Say Nothing. 

At the opening of the war and during 
its progress, the national weakness for 
speeches on all occasions became a posi- 



Xfncolnfca 159 

tive burden to public men, particularly as 
audiences always expected a speaker to be 
equipped with a full quiver of apposite 
remarks. It was truly said of the Presi- 
dent that " Abundat dulcibus vitiis (He 
abounds in pleasant thoughts)/' but he 
knew also when to be silent. At one time 
in 1863, when all the prominent person- 
ages were called upon to make speeches, 
Lincoln at his turn sensibly said: 

" I appear before you, fellow-citizens, 
merely to thank you for this compliment. 
The inference is a very fair one that you 
would hear me for a little while at least, 
were I to commence to make a speech. I 
do not appear before you for the purpose 
of doing so, and for several substantial 
reasons. The most substantial of these is 
that I have no speech to make. In my 
position it is somewhat important that I 
should not say any foolish things. [A 
voice, ' If you can help it.'] It very of- 
ten happens that the only way to help it 
is to say nothing at all. Believing that 



i6o Xincolnfcs 

is my present condition this evenings I 
must beg of you to excuse me from ad- 
dressing you further." 

A Trenchant Stroke of Wit. 

Under the most severe strain, the Presi- 
dent most invariably had recourse to 
humor. His rival, for a time, for popu- 
larity, General McClellan, was pro- 
nounced by him frankly ** a pleasant 
and scholarly gentleman." Before being 
forced to remove him, for the failure of 
his " scholarly " plans to fruit, Lincoln 
said: "If the General has no use for the 
Army of the Potomac I should like to 
borrow it for a little while." When the 
same General, developing political pru- 
dence, kept silence in regard to the cam- 
paign paper known as " the Chicago 
Letter," Lincoln gave, as a reason, that 
the advocate of the spade and pick — Mc- 
Clellan was an engineer officer by training 
— was " entrenching." 



Xlncolnics i6i 

" Paint Me With the Wart." 

When the Lord Protector of England 
sat for his likeness to Cooper, an eminent 
painter of the time, he protested on find- 
ing that the artist was going to draw him 
in profile: 

" No, a full face — paint me with the 
wart ! " 

In an equally frank way, though with 
his gentle irony. President Lincoln said to 
the portrait painter, Mr. Frank Carpenter: 

" Do you think j^ou can make a hand- 
some picture of me ? " 

" A General, at Last." 

During the war the most indulgent 
critic of the military movements could 
not refrain from laughing at the long- 
drawn-out pageant of commanders in the 
Virginia Valley, from " Old Fuss-and- 
feathers " — for even age and proven talent 
did not save General Scott, the patri- 
arch-general, from the American pro- 
pensity to bestow nicknames upon their 
11 



i62 Xiiicolnics 

servitors, as the Romans gave crowns to 
theirs — to the " great arithmeticians who 
had never set a squadron in the field/' 
much less handled an army of defence. 
When the Western Marius (New Car- 
thage had fallen to his arms) reached 
Washington, he was a disappointment — 
the taciturn, cigar-smoking, statuesque 
Grant, who " promised no reviews for the 
amusement of the Washington ladies and 
no ' show business.' " 

He had a private interview with the 
President, of which he has given an ac- 
count in his Memoirs. At its close, Lin- 
coln said to an inquirer: 

" Thank God, we have a General, at 
last!" 

Do Not Break, but Hold On ! 

" I have seen your despatch expressing 
your unwillingness to break your hold. 
Neither am I willing. Hold on with a 
bull-dog grip." 

President Lincoln to General Grant. 
August, 1863. 



Uincolnlcs 163 

" Government Of the People, By the 

People, and For the People, Shall 

Not Perish ! " 

" Four-score and seven years ago our 
fathers brought forth upon this continent 
a new nation, conceived in liberty, and 
dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. Now we are engaged 
in a great civil war, testing whether that 
nation, or any nation so conceived and 
so dedicated, can long endure. We are 
met on a great battle-field of that war. 
We have come to dedicate a portion of 
that field as a final resting place for those 
who here gave their lives that that nation 
might live. It is altogether fitting and 
proper that we should do this. But in a 
larger sense we cannot dedicate, we can- 
not consecrate, we cannot hallow this 
ground. The brave men, living and dead, 
who struggled here have consecrated it 
far above our power to add or detract. 
The world will little note, nor long 



i64 3Lincolnfc5 

remember, what we say here, but it can 
never forget what they did here. It is 
for us, the living, rather to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which they who 
fought here have thus far so nobly ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to be here 
dedicated to the great task remaining be- 
fore us, that from these honored dead we 
take increased devotion to that cause for 
which they gave the last full measure of 
devotion; that we here highly resolve that 
these dead shall not have died in vain; 
that this nation, under God, shall have a 
new birth of freedom, and that govern- 
ment OF the people, by the people, 
AND FOR THE PEOPLE, shall not perish 
from the earth." 

Address, dedicating the National Ceme- 
tery at Gettysburg, Nov. 19, 1863. 

This speech contains but 266 words. 
According to Edward Everett^ it eclipsed 
his own elaborate oration on the same 



' Edward Everett was deemed at the time 
the foremost orator of the country. 



Xlncolnicg 165 

occasion. It was read from a few sheets 
of foolscap, but was the result of four 
or five esjsays to reach perfection. It 
lasted five minutes — and will live forever. 
Unwittingly it was a verbal duel between 
colloquial and literary language. 

For a Soldiers' Cemetery. 

On visiting the cemetery of the Sol- 
diers' Home in Washington, the President 
said: 

How sleep the brave who sink to rest 
By all their country's wishes blest! 



And women o'er the graves shall weep, 
Where nameless heroes calmly sleep.' " 

All Hands and No Mouths. 

" I hold that if the Almighty had ever 
made a set of men that should do all 
the eating and none of the work, He 
would have made them with mouths only 



i66 Xincolnics 

and no hands; and if He had ever made 
another class that He intended should do 
all the work and no eating. He would 
have made them with hands only and no 
mouths." 

On the Women in the War. 

" I have never studied the art of paying 
compliments to women; but I must say 
that, if all that has been said by orators 
and poets, since the creation of the world, 
in praise of women, were applied to the 
women of America, it would not do them 
justice for their conduct during this war. 
God bless the women of America ! " 

At a Soldiers' Fair, at Washington, 
186—. 

" The Handsomest Man.'* 

A mother had obtained the pardon for her 
son, condemned by a court-martial, through 
personal intercession with the President. 
Her explanations justified giving the par- 
don. On leaving the room, she broke out: 



Xlncolnics 167 

" I knew it was a ' Copperhead ' lie ! 
Why, they told me that Mr. Lincoln was 
an ugly-looking man, and it is a lie. He 
is the handsomest man I ever saw in my 
life." 

The glow of goodness had transfigured 
him, as has been noticed in other instances. 

By Thaddeus Stevens, the intercessor 
in question. 

The Pact with Divinity. 

The Emancipation Proclamation was 
issued New Year's day, 1863. In the 
preceding September the Confederates had 
been defeated at the battle of Antietam. 
Lincoln presented his draft of the procla- 
mation at the next Cabinet meeting, where 
he made the statement that he had made 
a solemn vow before God, that if General 
Lee were driven back from Pennsjdvania 
he would crown the result by the declara- 
tion of freedom to the slave. 

On signing the document he remarked: 



i68 Xincolnic0 

" This signature will be closely examined 
and if they find that my hand trembled 
they will say that I hesitated or was irres- 
olute. But/' continued the author of 
that noblest gift to the negro, "it is not 
because of any uncertainty or hesitancy 
on my part — only [it was after the New 
Year public reception], three hours' hand- 
shaking is not calculated to improve a 
man's chirography." 

" It Is My Object to Break up that 
Game." 

In September, 1863, a peculiar kind of 
sedition seethed in the army before 
Washington. It was stated to President 
Lincoln that a Major Key, on General 
McClellan's staff, had replied to a brother 
officer that " the game was to exhaust both 
armies by fruitless operations so that a 
compromise could be effected and slavery, 
as an institution, saved." 

Summoned before the President, as his 
chief, the Major did not deny his words 



Xfncolnfcs 169 

or their substance, but protested his 
loyalty. 

The judge said: ''Gentlemen, if there 
is a ' game,' even among Union men, not 
to have our army take any advantage of 
the enemy it can, it is my object to break 
up that game." 

The offender was cashiered, and Lin- 
coln privately commented: 

"" Dismissed, because I thought his silly, 
treasonable expressions were * staff talk,* 
and I wished to make an example." 

"I Can Bear Censure, but Not 
Insult." 

A cashiered officer persisted several 
times in presenting to the President a plea 
for his reinstatement, and was finally as- 
sured that even his own statement did not 
justify a rehearing. His final application 
being met with silence he lost temper and 
blurted out: 

" Well, Mr. President, I see that you 
are fully determined not to do me justice." 



I70 Xincolnica 

Without evincing any emotion Mr. 
Lincoln rose, laid some papers on the 
desk, and suddenly seizing the officer by 
the coat-collar, marched him to the door. 
After ejecting him into the hall, he said: 

" Sir, I give you fair warning never to 
show yourself here again! I can bear 
censure, but not insult." 

To the Army and the Navy. 

Nothing more plainly and loudly pro- 
claims the modesty of Lincoln than his 
eulogy of the Army and Navy when 
he publicly expressed his gratitude with- 
out taking one laurel-leaf to himself. 
What a contrast to the vainglorious bulle- 
tins of Napoleon. 

Lincoln's Tribute to the U. S. Army: 
" No part of the honor for the plan or the 
execution [of the ending of the Rebellion] 
is mine. To General Grant, his skilful offi- 
cers and brave men, it all belongs." 1865. 

Lincoln's Tribute to the U. S. Navy: 
In a paper dated 1864, intended to be 



Xincolntcs 171 

read at a sailors' fair at Baltimore^ he 
commended the navy for its great ser- 
vices and efficiency. 

For Readiness in Emergency, Work 
for a Living. 

By the see-saw of fortune, the victories 
in the West, in 1863, counterbalanced the 
defeats in the East. Among the con- 
spicuous generals rose General Garfield, 
who executed feats in reinforcing, bring- 
ing up needed supplies, and a daring ride, 
worthy to be bracketed with General 
Sheridan's. 

Lincoln asked of a regular army offi- 
cer how it was that an amateur, like Gar- 
field, should accomplish in two weeks 
what a trained officer would have wanted 
two months to effect. 

" Because he was not educated at West 
Point," was the satirical reply. 

" No, that is not the reason. It is be- 
cause, when Garfield was a boy, he had 
to work for a living." 



172 Xincolnics 

Trust the Poor. 

" No men living are more worthy to 
be trusted than those who toil up from 
poverty ; ' none less inclined to take or 
touch aught which they have not hon- 
estly earned." 

Set your Feet Right, and then 
Stand Firm ! 

One day when Lincoln was escorting 
two ladies to the Soldiers' Home they 
were all compelled to leave the carriage, 
owing to the bad condition of the road 
due to excessive rain. Mr. Lincoln placed 
three stones for stepping-stones from the 
curb to the vehicle. While assisting the 
ladies to firm land^ he remarked: 

" All through life, be sure you put 
your feet in the right place, and then 
stand firm ! " 

" Keep Faith with Friend and Foe." 

" There have been men base enough 



Xincolnics 173 

to propose to me to return to slavery our 
black warriors of Port Hudson and Olus- 
tee, and thus win the respect of the 
masters they fought. Should I do so, I 
should deserve to be damned in time and 
eternity. Come what will, I will keep my 
faith with friend and foe." 

On July 30, 1863, the President issued 
an Executive order placing black soldiers 
on an equality with white. Unfortunately, 
the Secretary of War contravened this 
with an order of his own, which caused 
a confusion unhappy both for the colored 
soldiers and for the captured rebels, who 
were held man for man and treated pre- 
cisely as were the black prisoners by the 
Confederates — that is, restored to the con- 
ditions during slavery. Previously, a 
cartel had allowed exchange without rec- 
ognizing the rebels as belligerents. Later, 
when there was the large number of 
captives from Vicksburg, etc., Stanton 
refused to exchange, because it would re- 
inforce the failing cause with sound men. 



174 ILlncolnics 

General Grant finally compelled the 
strict military rule to be complied with 
regardless of politics or policy. But the 
colored soldiers suffered more than the 
white ones. President Lincoln spoke the 
above words to some Western visitors on 
the definite repeal of the Fugitive Slave 
Law in 1864. 



Go Home and Raise the Men ! 

It has long been asserted, and it is 
fairly proved, that the first nomination 
of Abraham Lincoln for President, and 
the determined prevention of his being 
shelved into the candidacy for Vice-Presi- 
dent in I860, was due to a concerted and 
well-matured plan elaborated by Mr. Me- 
dill of the Chicago Tribune, and by other 
writers and politicians of Illinois. This 
seems to be borne out by Mr. Medill's ac- 
count of an interview with the President 
in 1864). The call for more troops re- 



Xfncolnfcs 175 

volted the citizens of Chicago. Medill 
went with a deputation of Cook County 
citizens to demand a reduction of its quota. 
They argued in vain with Secretary Stan- 
ton and with General James B. Fry in 
the President's hearing. The question 
was finally referred to him. 

:Mr. Medill relates that: 

" He suddenly lifted his head and 
turned on us a black and frowning face. 

Gentlemen_,' he said in a voice full 
of bitterness, * after Boston, Chicago has 
been the chief instrument of bringing the 
war upon this country. . . It is you 
who are largely responsible for making 
blood flow as it has. You called for war 
until we had it. You called for emanci- 
pation, and I have given it to you. What- 
ever you have asked, you have had. 

" Now you come here, begging to be 
let off from the call for men which I have 
made to carry out the war you demanded. 
You ought to be ashamed of yourselves ! 
Go home, and raise your six thousand 



176 Xlncolnics 

extra men ! Go home, and send us those 
men! 

Abashed, they returned home — but 
raised and sent the men. 



Going Down with Colors Flying. 

It was considered very injudicious, po- 
litically, that almost coincident with Lin- 
coln's renomination for President he 
should issue a call for 500,000 more men. 
The Cabinet officers were mouthpieces for 
the objections. 

" Gentlemen," replied the President, 
" it is not necessary that I should be re- 
elected, but it is necessary that our brave 
boys should be supported and the country 
saved. If I go down under this measure. 
I will go down like the Cumberland ^ with 
my colors flying." 



^ The U. S. Ships Congress and Cumberland 
were sunk by the Confederate ram Merrimac, 
March, 1862. 



Xincolnfce 177 

"With a Brave Army and a Just 
Cause — " 

" Not expecting to see you again . . . 
I wish to express . . . my entire sat- 
isfaction with what you have done up to 
this time . . . And now, with a brave 
army and a just cause, may God sustain 
you ! 

[Letter of the President to General 
Grant, April 30, 1864.], 

The Solemn Pride of Patriotic 
Sacrifice. 

Executive Mansion, Washington, 
Nov. 21, 1864. 
Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass. 

Dear Madam: — I have been shown in 
the files of the War Department a state- 
ment of the Adjutant-General of Massa- 
chusetts that you are the mother of five 
sons who have died gloriously on the field 
of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless 
must be any words of mine which should 



178 Xincolnics 

attempt to beguile you from the grief of 
a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot 
refrain from tendering to you the con- 
solation that may be found in the thanks 
of the Republic they died to save. I 
pray that our Heavenly Father may as- 
suage the anguish of your bereavement, 
and leave you only the cherished memory 
of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride 
that must be yours to have laid so costly 
a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. 
Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 
Abraham Lincoln. 

"I Want to See Her Spread 
Herself!" 

During the civil struggle, the agitation 
in Washington, which was almost be- 
leaguered, found vent in animated discus- 
sions, and, even in the White House, 
where the importance of the chief's re- 
pose should have preserved decorum, the 
ushers and guardians assembled in their 
waiting room to wrangle and debate. The 



Xincolnica 179 

baited President had issued special in- 
structions to stop these sessions, but they 
were unheeded from pure need of doing 
something to break the tension of waiting. 
One evening, the amateur congress was 
assembled, discussing the news and the 
more plentiful rumors, when they were 
amazed by the unannounced entrance of 
the President in his stockinged feet, un- 
ceremoniously carrying his shoes in his 
hand. The hubbub had helped him in his 
attempted stealthine'ss, for he was not a 
fairy-light walker. At the apparition of 
this " lean and slippered Pantaloon," the 
meeting promptl}?^ dissolved, the members 
seeming to melt away. Their dean alone 
stayed, the senior usher, Pendel,^ Mr. 
Lincoln's own appointee whom he prized 
for his kindness to his children. The dis- 
turbed master shook his long bony finger 
at him and said: 



' Mr. Thomas F. Pendel, usher specially ap- 
pointed by President Lincoln in 1864, and in 
service in 1900. 



i8o XincoInic0 

" Pendel, you people remind me of the 
boy who set forty-three eggs under a hen. 
He then rushed indoors and told his 
mother what he had done. 

" ' But a hen cannot set on forty-three 
eggs,* remonstrated his mother. 

" ' No, I guess not; but I just want to 
see her spread herself! * 

" That 's what I wanted to see you boys 
do, when I came in and caught you trans- 
gressing/' concluded the President, as 
he returned to his own apartment. 

Shape Words to Turn to Men and 
Guns. 

In excusing himself from attending a 
mass meeting in New York in honor of 
General Grant, whose line of victories was 
beginning to point to the final one, the 
President wrote: 

" Grant and his brave soldiers are now 
in the midst of their great trial; and I 
trust that, at your meeting, you will so 



UincoliUcs i8i 

shape 3'our good words that they may turn 
to men and guns moving to his and their 
support." 

" Civil and Political Equality to 
Both Races." 

" The restoration of the rebel States 
to the Union must rest upon the principle 
of civil and political equality of both 
races; and it must be sealed by general 
amnesty." 

[Letter to General Wadsworth, 1864.] 

"Take the Responsibility and Act." 

General Grant himself relates that when 
the President invested the general from 
the West with the rank of Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral he stated that " all he wanted or 
ever had wanted was some one who would 
take the responsibility and act." 

March 12, 1864. 



1 82 %\ncoln\cB 

The Work a Duty— the Gratitude 
to God. 

To a deputation of the Christian Com- 
mission, testifying to the debt they owed 
him, Lincoln said: 

" My friends, you owe me no gratitude 
for what I have done; and I, I may say, 
owe you no gratitude for what you have 
done; just as, in a sense, we owe no grati- 
tude to the men who fought our battles 
for us. I trust that this has been for us 
all a work of duty. All the gratitude is 
due to the great Giver of all good." 



(< 



Got 'Em, for the Third Time ! " 



As the end of the Civil War approached, 
the capital was repeatedly thrilled by re- 
ports that " the backbone of the Rebel- 
lion " was broken at last. On hearing 
these rumors the President would only 
shrug one shoulder which, like a printer's, 
was higher than the other, and murmur: 
Got 'em again, for the third time ! ' " 



Xincolnicg 183 

He was reminded, he said, of a little 
incident which had occurred about 1820, 
and which was for years the talk of the 
neighborhood in Fulton County, 111. The 
Spoon River is one of the typical streams 
of the Mid- West. At times the water is 
high enough to float an ocean steamer 
" e'ena'most," and at others so low that 
the bed can easily be traced. It 
once happened that a little steamboat 
named the Utility left the Illinois River 
and, by some blunder, got into the Spoon, 
then running bank high. The nearest 
steamboat landing was at Havana, in Ma- 
son County, several miles from Lewistown, 
so the Fulton County folks were not accus- 
tomed to the sight of such craft, and the 
idea of a steamboat getting up the Spoon 
was not even dreamed of. One spring 
night the people heard strange and fear- 
ful sounds rising above the roaring of the 
waters of the freshets; they turned out 
of doors and stared with surprise to see, 
over the tree tops, a vessel spouting pitch- 



i84 Xincolnlcs 

pine smoke and flame;, while the whistling 
was prodigious and uncanny. One of the 
old settlers^ Sam Jenkins, had been ca- 
rousing for a week, and it was " about the 
season for him to see things." When he 
heard this terrible noise he staggered out 
of doors and spying the monster, looking 
like Vesuvius afloat, he threw up his 
palsied hands and j^elled: 

" Boys, I have got 'em again, for the 
third time ! " 

The river, capricious as ever, dropped 
suddenly from under the adventurous 
craft, so unhappily attracted to that point 
by the congenial name of Fulton, and 
left it high and dry on a sand bank. The 
ingenious proprietor landed her machin- 
ery and with it set up a saw-mill. The 
cabin furniture was disposed of in the 
neighborhood, and one Davidson, Sheriff 
of Fulton County, bought the shabby little 
rocking chair. Some years later, during a 
political campaign the political leader of 
the region, " Uncle Nat " Beadles, was 



Xlucolnics 185 

unable to offer his customary hospitality 
to the Democratic mouthpiece, Stephen 
A. Douglas, and it chanced that not only 
he, but Lincoln, also then a struggling 
law student, and the noted itinerant 
preacher Cartwright, also a candidate, 
had to sleep on soft feather ticks laid on 
the slab or puncheon floor of the David- 
son cabin. Lincoln rocked to and fro 
in the rude rocking chair, and naturally 
was much amused by the story attached 
to it. 

" I Count for Something ! ** 

In 1864, Louis Napoleon III. foisted 
the Archduke Maximilian of Austria 
upon the Mexican republic as Emperor. 
Some of the Confederates talked of fall- 
ing into rank with their Federal foes, to 
oust the foreigner, and this front of the 
Americans, combined with the determined 
resentment of the Mexicans, compelled 
the intriguing French Emperor to abandon 



i86 Xincolnics 

his brother Caesar^ in 1867. Maximilian 
was then captured and shot by the na- 
tives. Sounded by a French notable^ as to 
the status between France and the United 
States at the climax of this crowned fili- 
bustering, Lincoln replied: 

" There has been war enough. I 
know what the American people want; 
but, thank God ! I count for something, 
and during my second term there will be 
no more fighting." 

One of the first orders of Andrew John- 
son, on his untimely accession to the Chair, 
in 1865, accelerated the downfall of 
Maximilian. 

A Knock-Down Argument. 

A private soldier had knocked down 
his captain, and a court-martial had sen- 
tenced him to the Dry Tortugas. His 
friends bestirred themselves in his be- 
half, and prevailed upon Judge Schofield, 
a personal friend of President Lincoln, to 



Xlncolntcs 187 

intercede in his behalf. Lincoln paid 
close attention to all that Schofield had to 
offer, and then said: 

" I tell Tou, Judge, you go right down 
to the Capitol, and get Congress to pass 
an act authorizing a private soldier to 
knock down his captain. Then come 
back here and I will pardon your man." 
The Judge saw the point, and withdrew. 

" I Am the Longest, but McClellan 
Is Better-Looking." 

An officer, on duty at Baltimore, at- 
tended a Democratic meeting and made a 
speech for General McClellan, who was 
then highly popular and a candidate for 
the coming Presidential election which 
gave Lincoln his second term. The Secre- 
tary of War suspended the officer, who 
thereupon presented himself to the Presi- 
dent for reinstatement. 

" When the military duties of an officer 
are fairly and faithfully performed,'* 
pronounced the arbiter, " he can manage 



1 88 Xincolnics 

his politics in his own way.^ We have 
no more to do with that than with his re- 
ligion. . . Supporting General McClel- 
lan is no violation of army regulations, 
andj as a question of taste, choosing be- 
tween him and me-' — well, I am the long- 
est, but McClellan is better-looking." 

Veniam Petimus Datnusque Vicissim, 
(Horace). 

When two Confederate agents in Can- 
ada, Thompson and Sanders, desiring to 
return home, craved permission of Secre- 
tary of War Stanton to pass through the 
Northern States, Lincoln gave the pass in 
these words: 

" Let us close our eyes and let them 
pass unnoticed." 



^ As Lincoln did not, in his days of military 
autocracy, pretend to any military knowledge, 
his inconsistency with tradition is pardonable, 
but the time-honored rule is Scriptural: "No 
man that warreth entangleth himself with the 
affairs of this life." {Second Epistle of Paul to 
Timothy f ii, 4.) 



Xincolntcs 189 

They Ought to Know. 

Towards the close of the great conflict, 
surmises upon the length of time to which 
the war might be protracted were based 
on estimates of the hostile strength. On 
being asked point blank what he thought 
were the forces of the Confederates^, the 
President replied offhand: 

" The Confederates have some 1,200,- 
000 in the field." 

" Is it possible ! how did you find that 
out? " 

" Why," said Lincoln, " every Union 
general I ever heard tell — when he has 
been * licked ' — says the rebels outnum- 
bered him three or four to one; now, we 
have at the present time about 400,000 
men, and three times that number would 
be 1,200,000, wouldn't it.?" 

The Bible— the Best Gift to Man. 

" It [the Bible] is the best gift which 
God has ever given to man. All the 



igo Xincolnics 

good from the Saviour of the world is 
communicated to us through this book. 
But for that book, we could not know 
right from wrong. All those truths de- 
sirable for men are contained in it." 
On the presentation of a Bible to the 

President by the colored people of 

Baltimore, July 4, 1864. 



The Cave of Adullam. 

After Lincoln was renominated in 1864 
General Fremont, who, because of a 
grievance, had resigned from the army, 
also ran for the Presidency. An inter- 
locutor having referred to his strength, 
the President opened the Bible at the 
First Book of Samuel, and read: 

" And every one in distress and in debt, 
and discontented, gathered themselves 
unto him, and he became captain over 
them, and there were with him about four 
hundred men." 



Xincolnfc6 191 

A Little Man for a Big Business. 

At the second inauguration of Presi- 
dent Lincoln^ in 1865, there was pointed 
out to him a famous little lad who played 
in the band of the Germantown Hospital 
as post drummer, Harry W. Stowman, 
aged eleven, " the Infant Drummer " of 
various theatrical advertisements. The 
President was always fond of children — 
but then, what that is good was he not 
fond of? — and had the prodigy brought to 
liim. He caught the little fellow up in 
his arms and, kissing him, said: 

" You are a very little man to be in 
this big war business." 

(The editor well remembers "the In- 
fant Drummer." He was a standing at- 
traction in the theatre at Barnum's Mu- 
seum, New York City, called " the lecture 
room," in order not to offend the unco 
guid. When a tune was being played by 
the band he would execute a drum solo 
which went far to confirm the opinion of 



192 Xlncolnicd 

a certain German drum performer, who 
esteemed it the greatest of musical instru- 
ments. How his little hands could get 
so great a volume of sound out of the 
hollow sphere still remains a mystery.) 

Slipping down Unbeknownst. 

After the capitulation of General Lee, 
in April, 1865, the members of the Con- 
federate Cabinet scattered in all Southern 
directions. General Wilson, to whom 
Macon had surrendered, was chasing the 
President of the ex-Confederate States, 
who had not a last ditch for hiding. He 
asked for instructions in the dilemma — 
should he capture the fugitive or let him 
escape,^ Grant referred in person to his 
Chief, who said: 

" This reminds me of a story: 

" There was once an Irishman who had 

signed a Father Mathews^s temperance 

pledge. A few days later, he became 

terribly thirsty, and finally applied to a 



!2LtncolniC6 193 

bartender in a saloon for a glass of lemon- 
ade; and while it was being mixed^ leaned 
over and whispered to him: 

An' could n't yees put a little whis- 
key into it, all unbeknownst to mesilf ? ' 

" Now, General, if Jeff can get away 
unbeknownst to us, I shall be glad." 

Pluck a Thistle and Plant a 
Flower. 

In the spring of 1865, a number of 
men who had resisted the draft in west- 
ern Pennsylvania were pardoned in a 
batch, by the President. His friend Mr. 
J. H. Speed, who had heard the touching 
pleas of two women petitioners in the 
case, observed that he wondered why the 
President stood the anguish of such 
pleadings when he was, at heart, so 
sensitive. 

" I have, in that order," said Lincoln, 
" made people happy and alleviated the 
distress of many a poor soul whom I 

13 



194 Xlncolnics 

never expect to see. Speed, die when I 
may, I want it said of me by those who 
know me best, that I always plucked a 
thistle and planted a liower, when I 
thought a flower would grow." 

America the Treasury of the 
World. 

" Tell the miners from me that their 
prosperity is the prosperity of the na- 
tion; and we shall prove that we are in- 
deed the treasury of the world." 

President Lincoln to Schuyler Colfax, 
April, 1865. 

The Grip of an Honest Man. 

During the Civil War, Lord X 

made himself notorious by his persistent 
support of the lost cause, in spite of the 
Queen's imposition of neutrality upon her 
subjects. He upheld the building of 
privateers on the Mersey, the attempts to 
float the cotton loan in Lombard Street, 



3LlncolniC6 195 

and the frenetic canards in the hostile 
press. Notwithstanding this conduct, 
when the last shot was fired, he presented 
himself at the White House to participate 
in the public reception, and to receive one 
of the hearty hand-shakes for which the 
President was famed. The host knew 
all about this alien supporter of the Con- 
federacy, but with his most affable smile 
he extended his hand to the one eagerly 
advanced. It was without any warning, 
however, unless his conscience misgave 
him, that the Briton felt his knuckles 
crushed together in the Herculean grip. 
The disabled nobleman withdrew his hand 
as quickly as possible and sor>n withdrew 
in person, greatly to the amusement of 
those who suspected the effective punish- 
ment given by the Eagle's talon. 

The Lincoln Grip. 

It was remarked with wonder that at 
the end of the public receptions in the 
Executive INIansion, when all the world 



196 3LincolnlC5 

could clasp the President's hand, he would 
respond as forcibly to the last comer as to 
the first. Questioned upon this singular 
fact, Lincoln explained: 

" The hardships of my early life gave 
me strong muscles." 

Fooling the People. 

" You may fool all of the people some 
of the time, and some of the people all of 
the time; but you cannot fool all of the 
people all of the time." 

The Lord's Judgments are True and 
Righteous. 

" Fondly do we hope, fervently do we 
pray, that this mighty scourge of war may 
speedily pass away. Yet if God will that 
it continue until all the wealth piled by 
the bondman's two hundred and fifty 
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, 
and until every drop of blood drawn with 
the lash shall be paid by another drawn 



Uincolnlca 197 

with the sword; as was said three thous- 
and years ago, so still it must be said, 
* The judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether.' " 

Second Inaugural Address, 1865. 

"Let Us Judge Not Lest We Be 
Judged." 

This was the sacred text with which 
Lincoln rebuked the persons who clam- 
ored " We '11 hang Jeff Davis to a sour 
apple tree ! " when the ex-President of 
the crushed Southern Confederacy was 
captured at Irwinsville, Ga., after the fall 
of Macon. 

Divination by the Bible. 

On the second inauguration day of 
Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865, the 
gentleman who handed the Bible to the 
twice-chosen advocate of the people noted 
the place where the open book was kissed. 
The passage denoted, according to the 



igS Xincolntcs 

hallowed Sortes Biblice, the speedy quell- 
ing of the Rebellion, namely, Isaiah v., 
26, 27: 

"And he will lift up an ensign to the 
nations from far, and will hiss unto them 
from the end of the earth; and behold, 
they shall come with speed swiftly; " and 
so on. 

The Modern Prometheus. 

In a conversation with Senator Clark 
(N. H.) the President observed of office- 
seekers : 

" It seems as if every visitor darted at 
me, and with finger and thumb carried 
off a portion of my vitality ! Of twenty 
applicants, I make nineteen enemies ! " 

Seven Eighths Living on the Other 
Eighth. 

The Tite Barnacles in our midst were 
thus characterized by Lincoln: 

" Sitting here [in the White House], 



Xincolnics 199 

where all the avenues of public patronage 
come together in a knot^ it does seem to 
me that our people are fast approaching 
the point where it can be said that seven 
eighths of them are trying to find out 
how they may live at the expense of the 
other eighth." 

To Senator Clark (N. H.), 1865. 

" Love Thine Enemies !" 

The Marquis of Chambrun^ who was in 
the Presidential party on a trip outside 
the capital, as they neared the city on 
their return, heard Mrs. Lincoln observe 
with bitterness: 

" That city is filled with our enemies ! " 

Her husband promptly reproved her, 
saying: 

" Enough ! we must never speak of 
that ! " 

Saturday, April 9, 1865. 

About the same time, when guiding the 
President through the Washington hospi- 



200 Hincolnics 

tals. Dr. Jerome Walker, of Brooklyn, 
turned him from a ward containing pris- 
oners, saying: 

" They are rebels." 

Wherepon he was corrected with the 
words : 

" You mean they are Confederates." 

The Vast Future for America. 

" There are already among us those 
who, if the Union be preserved, will live 
to see it contain two hundred and fifty 
millions of population. The struggle of 
to-day is not altogether for to-day; it is 
for a vast future also." 

Lincoln's Last Act Was of Grace. 

It was the afternoon of the mournful 
day of April 14, 1865. 

A senator called at the Executive Man- 
sion to confer with the President, to whom 
news was pouring in that might make him 
take back his lugubrious saying that " he 



Xlncolnics 201 

would never know peace again." The 
Senator was J. B. Henderson of Missouri, 
and he was speaking in behalf of one 
Vaughn, a soldier in the regiment of Col- 
onel Green of the Confederate Army. 
When the cause was lost Colonel Green 
had instructed this soldier to carry letters 
to his family. The courier was captured, 
tried and sentenced as a spy, and despite 
two re-trials was under the shadow of the 
death penalty. The President listened 
to the suitor, who pointed out that at last 
the war was decidedly at an end: 

" This pardon, therefore, should be 
granted in the interest of peace and 
conciliation." 

The President fully agreed and said: 

" Go to Stanton and tell him this man 
must be released." 

But the Secretary of War, who often 
persisted in his opposition to his chief, 
was violently incensed and more than us- 
ually obdurate. When the repulsed ad- 
vocate returned empty-handed to the 



202 XtncolniC6 

President, the latter was dressed for the 
visit to Ford's Theatre. At once he wrote 
an order to the same effect as his verbal 
message, saying to Mr. Henderson: 

" I think this will have precedence over 
Stanton ! " 

It was an unconditional release and 
pardon — the last official act of the Presi- 
dent was one of grace. Cromwell said on 
his death-bed: " If once in grace is al- 
ways in grace, then am I safe ! " 



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